Councillors back £8m loan for shopping mall revamp

Councillors have backed plans to loan £8m to developers working to transform a former Scarborough shopping centre into a leisure complex.

Scarborough Group International (SGI) wants to turn the Brunswick Centre into a leisure, retail and hospitality destination.

On Tuesday, members of North Yorkshire Council's executive agreed in principle to the loan as well as plans for £10.5m of public grant funding.

Deputy leader of the Conservative-led authority, Mark Crane, admitted the £8m could be at risk if the scheme failed, but said the project had the potential to "cause people to spend more money and time in the town year-round".

SGI have suggested the scheme could attract around 850,000 visits a year, generate more than £45m a year and support almost 600 jobs.

However, council officers said the figures would be independently reviewed during the next stage of the project, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Independent Rich Maw raised concerns that councillors were being asked to support "a multi-million pound loan and grant for a scheme that doesn't have planning permission".

Meanwhile, Labour's Liz Colling said "all of Scarborough" wanted to see the site redeveloped, but she was concerned about the "proportion of funding coming from the public purse".

The public funding is said to account for approximately 25% of the overall scheme cost, according to council officers.

The plan was described as a "bit of a gamble" by Reform UK councillor Tom Seston, who crew comparisons to the Alpamare waterpark.

The attraction was opened in 2016 with the help of a £9m from Scarborough Borough Council, but the loan was mostly written off by NYC after the site entered administration in 2023.

However, members of the council's ruling Conservative group said the Brunswick Centre redevelopment would help tackle problems in the town's evening economy and that additional safeguards would help to reduce risks.

Under the approved structure, up to £1m of the council's contribution would be at risk if the project did not progress beyond the pre-construction stage.

Further funding would only be released once a series of planning, legal, commercial and financial conditions had been satisfied.

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