Spotlight

SBC/STDB: Negligence, Incompetence and Lies? – Pt.1

Letters May 31, 2022 Scarborough Borough Council

SBC/STDB: Negligence, Incompetence and Lies? – Pt.1

An Open Letter to Scarborough Borough Council (SBC) and the Scarborough Town Deal Board (STDB), signed by well over 100 members of the South Bay community (comprising residents, Harbour users (commercial and leisure), and retailers (shops, hospitality, accommodation), has been published today and addressed to to the Scarborough Town Deal Board, Scarborough Borough Council (Officers and Councillors), the entire business community of Scarborough seafront and Harbour (the Bottom End), the entire business community of Scarborough Town Centre and Scarborough residents as a whole. (see the unredacted Open Letter, below this introduction – or download here).

It is important to note that the Scarborough Town Deal Board (STDB) is NOT a democratically elected body; it comprises carefully selected ‘dignitaries’ and ‘luminaries’, predominantly from outside of the Borough, who have scant knowledge of the Harbour or the Town Centre and appear to have been ‘hood-winked’ by SBC Officers.

The eight-page Open Letter expresses, in a clinically well-argued and appropriately documented manner, the signatories’ collective sense of outright betrayal and sets out damning allegations which include:

that the proposal to ‘regenerate’ the West Pier has been pursued in direct contravention of the government’s Town Deal guidelines;

that Officers have deliberately misrepresented West Pier as being part of the designated Town Centre (which it is not), both to stakeholders and to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities;