NORTH YORKSHIRE COUNCIL
21 May 2025
STATEMENT OF EXECUTIVE MEMBER FOR CULTURE, ARTS & HOUSING
VENUES & ATTRACTIONS
Scarborough Spa
Scooter Rally – approximately 1,200 tickets sold and the event is now confirmed annually through to 2029.
Pantomime – confirmed for 2025, ‘The Governess’ Anne Hegerty from The Chase and actor Jake Quickenden as co-headliners for this year’s Panto, Cinderella opening 6 December.
Scarborough Spa Orchestra – the summer season starts 27 July running through to 17 September.
Cliff Lift 150th Anniversary – celebrations taking place 5–6 July
Scarborough Open Air Theatre (OAT) – the stage now completed in readiness for the first show of 2025 – The Corrs on 11 June 2025.
Scarborough Food and Drink Festival - held on 12 & 13 April, the event attracted more than 15,000 visitors with overwhelming positive feedback.
Filey Brigg Campsite Newsletter – mailed to over 5,000 people detailing site information. Bookings over Easter improved vs last year and early bookings for 2026 are up 16% on 2024 for the same period.
Filey Food Festival - held on 19 & 20 April with an increased stallholder participation, receiving positive feedback from both traders and customers.
LIBRARIES
Digital support continues to be a key element of library services with 5,713 assisted digital sessions January to March 2025. These sessions help customers access online services such as bus passes / blue badge applications via NYC and personal devices. During January Libraries supported the latest rollout of the Household Support Fund scheme, with over 2,200 people visiting a library for help with printing shopping vouchers. We also had our busiest period of the year with 32,478 sessions booked on our public computers.
Other Library activity this quarter includes the implementation of the new Library Management System, Civica Spydus, used by staff and volunteers to manage stock and customer data. This involved a migration of 573,720 item records and 136,117 customer records to the new system. Downtime was kept to a minimum and went live on 19 March.
Work is progressing on the new mobile library due to come into service this autumn. The new vehicle will be smaller and able to visit more communities; around 40 villages. New criteria for determining the eligibility for these mobile stops was presented to Overview & Scrutiny Committee in March. Parish Councils have been contacted about the plans and we are working with partners who are keen to offer wider access to council services on the mobile.
CULTURE
Work is ongoing for a smooth transition to bring Scarborough’s Rotunda Museum, Art Gallery and Woodend Creative space back ‘in-house’ from 1 July this year. Plans are underway for the autumn programming of the Art Gallery and discussions with local groups and interested parties are taking place on maximising the offer at Rotunda, which houses a nationally and internationally significant geology collection.
This year celebrates 75 years of North Yorkshire Archives in 2025, with an annual programme of special events – the highlight of which will be the Treasures of North Yorkshire: Archives at Dusk event on Thursday 22 May in Northallerton, at which we will be showcasing some amazing treasures and unique records from 800 years of history. From medieval manuscripts and heraldry, to fine art and photography, industrial history, to the story of shipbuilding – the collections are diverse.
We continue to offer a diverse exhibition programme across NYC Galleries, recently opening H.A.P.P.Y at the Mercer in Harrogate, in collaboration with renowned artist Liz West. Her piece Our Colour Reflection, an immersive installation is combined with a unique soundscape composed for the exhibition by Leeds-based electronic producer, musician and artist Cherry Seraph. The artist has also selected artworks and artefacts from Harrogate’ museum collections to reflect upon our responses to colour and light, giving a unique insight to creative process. Feedback so far has been hugely positive and it’s fantastic to bring contemporary art of significance to North Yorkshire.
In April Arts Council England held an event in Selby Abbey attended by officers, Members, local artists and the Mayor of York & North Yorkshire to showcase the cultural development and place-shaping work undertaken by ACE and NYC in Selby, Sherburn and Tadcaster - and the fantastic achievements made by the Now Then! Project.
Admissions figures to NYC cultural venues was up by c.20,000 at year end 2024/25 compared to year end 2023/24.
ACTIVE NORTH YORKSHIRE
Turkish Baths National Recognition - Turkish Baths Harrogate have recently been awarded the English Hair & Beauty Awards 2025 – Spa of the Year! A black-tie ceremony took place at Leeds United Football Club. The Baths have also recently made it to the finals of the Good Spa Awards for Best Traditional Spa Experience 2025.
Lifesaving Incident at Northallerton Leisure Centre - in April, a 33-year-old customer collapsed whilst playing 5-aside football at Northallerton Leisure Centre. The staff team had to provide immediate emergency CPR before the emergency services arrived. Following a period of time in intensive care, the customer has since recovered well following corrective heart surgery, he is back up and about and met with the staff at the leisure centre recently and thanked them for saving his life.
Healthy You - The new lifestyle service is now fully staffed and meeting the high demand of referrals. The service now provides a family / young people offer in all localities.
Playing Pitch Strategy - the Stage B consultations for the winter pitch sports has commenced with the relevant NGB’s. Responses from grassroots clubs has been high and will provide a relevant level of analysis for the study.
Local Football Facilities Plan - in partnership with the Football Foundation and the County FA’s we are developing a new LFFP for North Yorkshire Council, which will focus on the development of community 3G Pitches and ancillary facilities.
Scarborough Sports Village Pitch – This has been a challenging time with recent surveys revealing serious structural issues relating to the pitch, which is the home to Scarborough Athletic Football Club (SAFC), Scarborough Ladies and a wide range of community teams and groups. We are working closely with SAFC and a range of stakeholders and we have pledged to deal with the issues as quickly as possible to secure the long-term future for this well-used facility. Positive discussions have been undertaken with the original contractors and a full range of options will be considered by the Council’s Executive in June.
HOUSING
Retrofit Programme
Following our bid for additional funds to support the retrofitting of Council homes we have received an offer from the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNEZ) of £21.9m in grant funding and will match fund this with a capital sum approved from NYC of £18m making a total project spend of £39m.
The grant funding and capital sum will allow us to treat 1664 of our worst energy-performing homes across our housing stock, improving energy performance, helping tackle the ongoing battle of fuel poverty, and improving health and well-being by providing comfortable homes at an acceptable Energy performance of C.
Next steps are already underway with the data now gathered on our current position across the housing stock. Plans to target those properties are now being put in place, with a customer engagement plan and procurement of the appropriate contractors to help us deliver this project over the next 3 years.
We are also pushing ahead with the retrofitting of privately owned homes and we have been awarded a further £5.9m from DESNZ for the Warm Homes: Local Grant (WHFLG) initiative. This programme is currently in the mobilisation phase and will launch in the next few months. It will support the installation of insulation measures, solar panels, batteries, and low carbon heating systems, to around 250 households over the next 3 years.
Homelessness
At the end of February the Rough Sleeping Adviser from Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) spent 2 days in North Yorkshire visiting Scarborough and Harrogate, the areas with the highest demand for rough sleeping. Following the visit they emailed to advise how impressed they were with the work and services available and the strong partnerships that were in place. This included the proactive approach from outreach and the joint working with other teams, for example REACH and the local policing and mental health teams in Scarborough. Also, the success of the Amazing Grace pods in Harrogate for those who needed a ‘stepping stone’ into accommodation. He advised that ‘It was very clear from my visit that both in Harrogate and Scarborough, it was the team of professionals, a well-developed ethos and culture together with strong partnerships that is keeping rough sleeping at low figures’. In addition to the feedback, he discussed some recommendations to build on the good work and services already in place and also initiatives that could be rolled out across the county.
Numbers in Emergency and Temporary Accommodation
As at the end of March there were 273 households in temporary accommodation, this has been an increase of 21 in the last quarter. There was an increase of 7 within the general temporary accommodation stock to 149, but also an increase to 96 in B&B, and slight reduction to 28 in holiday lets.
Another 6 additional temporary accommodation units have been purchased in Norton, Malton, following the ones in Scarborough that families moved into earlier this year and these are currently being prepared ready to be let. The Housing Needs and Housing Development team continue to meet regularly and work well together to deliver the additional temporary accommodation units that are in the pipeline for the coming year.
Tenant involvement
Our Tenant Involvement Strategy was approved in early April. Our vision is to engage and involve tenants, using their insights to influence and improve services, ensuring their voices are heard in decisions affecting their homes, safety, and communities.
The approval of the strategy was followed by the launch of our Tenant Scrutiny Panel. The tenant-led panel examines how well we deliver our housing service and will work on an annual plan of specific topics focusing on areas that are under-performing or where there is poor tenant satisfaction. This panel is an opportunity for tenants to work more strategically to influence services.
Tenants are also participating in Task and Finish groups for specific projects. Recent successful discussions focused on the repairs policy in January and the Lettable Standard policy in April. Future policy reviews will cover grounds maintenance, disrepair, Right to Buy, and compensation policies.
In May, we will hold the first quarterly Tenant Voice Panel Forum meeting. The Tenant Voice Panel is open to all tenants and leaseholders, who will be asked to elect a tenant chair and committee members. The purpose of the panel is to enable tenants to be involved in the review of policies and procedures, or other aspects of service improvement. At the forum we will present our quarterly performance report and provide updates against the Housing Improvement Plan. This group will link to the Housing Improvement Board and the overview and scrutiny committee.
Talking face to face with our council house tenants is one of the most important things we do, so in April the tenant involvement team arranged a series of Spring Clean Community Action Days. Communities came together in the Selby area and skips were provided to help tenants clear out unwanted items. These days were a great success, with a lot of positive feedback from tenants. More Spring Clean days are planned in the Harrogate and Richmond areas in June.
New Affordable Homes
Following the acquisition of 19 new Council homes in Scarborough and Norton approved in March, we are acquiring a further 12 new homes that are part of a 53-home development on Airedale Avenue. These will become the first new Council homes in Skipton for 40 years.
The housing development has full planning approval and work is due to start on site in early 2026. The new housing is expected to be completed in phases between March 2026 and December 2026.
As well as the 12 houses bought for rent by the council, a further four other homes will be acquired by Bracewell Homes, the authority's separate shared ownership housing company. The acquisition is being funded through the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) and by using the capital receipts of homes sold under the right to buy.
These homes form part of the Council’s commitment toward the delivery of 500 new council homes over the next five years.
COUNCILLOR SIMON MYERS