Scarborough Council approves further £600,000 for railway station 'gateway' redevelopment

An artist's impression of the wider landscaping outside Scarborough Railway Station.

Council officers agreed on Monday 1 August to release an additional budget of £640,000 to “progress the Scarborough Station Gateway phase one public realm works”.

The decision will increase the approved budget to £1.1m, which will be funded from the already accepted £6.68m Towns Fund Grant allocated towards the project.

The project, aimed at redeveloping Scarborough Railway Station, will focus on structural improvements and bringing disused parts of the historic building back into use as a station hotel and food and drink units.

An artist's impression of how Pavilion House, opposite the station, could look.

The authority recently applied for an additional £20m of Levelling Up funding specifically for the redevelopment of Scarborough Railway Station as well as Pavilion House and the former Comet corner building on Westwood.

North Yorkshire County Council has also made an £8.4m bid to the Levelling Up fund to help redevelop Scarborough Railway Station as a transport hub.

Signed off by borough council director Nicholas Edwards, approval was given to appoint Tilbury Douglas Construction Limited for the sum of £362,000 to carry out the design of the works’ spatial co-ordination and technical design “pursuant to a competitive tender process through the YORcivil Framework”.

The contract for Tilbury Douglas Construction, a UK-wide building, infrastructure, engineering and fit-out company, has not been made publicly available.

An artist's impression of the works to transform the space outside the railway station.

A budget of £99,000 is also being reserved to “undertake additional surveys and investigations during stage two”, according to published documents.

Additionally, the council approved entry into a “Basic Asset Protection Agreement (BAPA) with Network Rail Infrastructure Limited” to the sum of £98,000 – detailed in a confidential appendix – to enable the council to “design and then subsequently carry out works on land owned by Network Rail”.

The published documents reveal that “at present, the council is at risk for £145m [insurance] liability” because the Network Rail agreement requires the authority to provide £155m of public liability insurance, and Tilbury Douglas Construction only carries £10m of public liability insurance”.

But the “head of projects has requested National Rail to consider reducing this to £10m”, a reduction of almost £150m, “as the work is not on a [train] track”.

The former Comet corner building on Westwood is set to become a new science and engineering hub. An artist's impression.

As part of the asset protection agreement, the council is required to reimburse Network Rail “all additional operation, maintenance and renewals costs that may arise for Network Rail as a result of the works”.

The authority says it intends to “design the scheme to ensure minimal maintenance is required and to negotiate further on this point with Network Rail”.

However, the council says that any financial implications will be contained in the report seeking further council approval to carry out these works.