Future of town's shopping centre to be scrutinised

Scarborough's Brunswick Shopping Centre was opened in the 1990s

Up to £350,000 could be spent on a study examining the future of shopping centre in a North Yorkshire seaside town.

Funding for the feasibility study into the Brunswick Shopping Centre in Scarborough was approved at a recent meeting of North Yorkshire Council.

Following a fact-finding visit, councillor Mark Crane told the meeting he had found the centre was currently "a slightly sad part of Scarborough", adding that he hoped the study would come up with a plan and approval for redeveloping the centre which would encourage people to visit the town more often.

Scarborough Group International (SGI), which bought the Brunswick Centre in 2021, said the study would not affect its existing proposals to redevelop the site.

Plans approved by North Yorkshire Council in 2023 for a multiplex cinema and food court at the centre were described at the time by the authority as a "game-changer".

SGI has not yet announced who will run the planned cinema.

'In need of work'

The funding for the feasibility study comes as Scarborough is set to receive £20m of funding over the coming decade - and a proposal on how it should be spent was submitted to the government last week.

Mr Crane, executive member for open to business at North Yorkshire Council, told the meeting his visit to the centre had shown it was "in need of some work doing".

He added that he hoped a redeveloped centre would "encourage people to visit Scarborough more often and, quite importantly for residents, to enjoy better leisure facilities".

Councillor Heather Phillips, executive member for corporate services, said she thought the planned feasibility study was issuing "a vote of confidence in Scarborough".

She said she was happy the authority was being "seen to be working with a very important local but international partner to deliver the next step in our hoped-for regeneration of the town centre".

A plan to transform the Brunswick Shopping Centre into a cinema and leisure destination were first submitted in 2021

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, SGI first submitted its multi-million-pound plan to transform the centre, which dates back to the 1990s, into a major cinema and leisure destination in 2021.

However, SGI's chosen partner for the cinema had not yet been named publicly amid "ongoing legal matters", councillors were told.

The planned cinema is set to take up to 29,062 sq ft (2,700 sq m) out of the Brunswick Centre's almost 150,694 sq ft (14,000 sq m) of space, with the exact number of screens and the size of the cinema to be agreed with its future operator.

Councillor Simon Myers said: "It’s very obvious when you visit Scarborough, particularly that part of the town, what a key role this building could hold in the revitalisation of this part of Scarborough.

"So, it’s really excellent news the council is getting behind a vision to see a development there and a repurposing and uplifting of the whole area."

'Long path'

Gareth Dadd, North Yorkshire Council's deputy leader, said he did "not want to dampen spirits", but he reminded colleagues "this is not beyond scrutiny".

"This is just the first step on the long path," he added.

"This is merely a feasibility study, it’s not an open-ended cheque on behalf of the authority at all. It will be challenged, it will be scrutinised."

Council officers said the study would be used to establish "what is a fair amount of public funding required to develop this scheme and whether or not that morphs into something else".

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