The Local View

Scarborough

Managing risks remains critical if local government is to be instrumental in driving economic and cultural change in their communities. In Scarborough we appear, so far, to have got the balance between risk and reward just right, but it’s a constant challenge.

Seven years into an 18-year project to transform Scarborough, the North Yorkshire town and its council are picking up awards for the work done so far. These include winning the Enterprising Britain Award 2008, European Enterprise Award 2008/9, Core Value Awards 2009, and most recently the Academy of Urbanism Great Town Award beating off stiff competition from Cambridge and Chester. The council’s regeneration service also picked up an ‘excellent’ rating from the Audit Commission early in 2009, the first in the UK since 2002.

But, Scarborough at the turn of the twenty-first century century was a place grappling with changing business and tourist trends, economic decline and structurally inherent low expectations and aspirations. Perceived as isolated and with an outdated economy over-dependent on tourism and few major local employers, something had to change.

The catalyst for change happened with the designation of Scarborough as an urban renaissance town which led to a Community Planning weekend in 2002. Over 1000 local people from all sectors of the community who were passionate and committed to their town attended the event and took up the call to change Scarborough for the better. The enterprise shown by everyone at this event provided the spark for the renaissance of Scarborough, and from this beginning the Scarborough Renaissance Partnership was formed.

The challenge to transform the Scarborough from a coastal town with a seasonal economy to one with an all-year economy and an enterprise culture has not been easy to meet. When councils embark on place-changing projects, we are all conscious of trying to avoid promising too much and delivering too little, or of delivering something that does not necessarily fulfill the expectations of local people and businesses. The weekend was critical in helping everyone agree on a long-term agenda for the town.

Since then, the social and economic prospects of the area have been radically transformed through the strands of community involvement, the council’s direct input into regeneration projects and business support, together with private sector investment in long-term strategic projects. Community partnerships tackling serious antisocial behaviour problems, creating public realm improvements and giving pride back to the local community have been key in several run-down areas of the town. Public realm improvements at the harbour have inspired local businesses to invest in new cafes and restaurants, creating new jobs and bringing derelict and under-used buildings back into use.

One of the key economic challenges has been to unlock the underlying enterprise of the town by supporting, encouraging and developing the creative, cultural and digital industries. This sector is the fastest growing sector within the town and its contribution to the local economy is fast overtaking tourism. This has been achieved so far through the development of a state-of-the-art creative industries centre, Woodend Creative Workspace, containing 52 office units, nine artist studios, a public exhibition space, conference and meeting rooms, together with a new 83-acre business park.

The business park brought another accolade for the town when it won the government’s Business Regeneration Project Award. The introduction of a high-capacity broadband service through NYnet, a local government-backed delivery vehicle, has given the town one of the fastest broadband services in Europe (100Mb/s). NYnet was driven primarily by North Yorkshire County Council, and the fusion with Scarborough Borough Council’s flair for innovation and enterprise is an excellent example of local government working together to drive change.

The revitalisation process has acted as a catalyst for an unprecedented level of new private sector investment and confidence in Scarborough. The Sands leisure development is the borough’s flagship project and will ultimately bring in £200 million of private sector investment, in apartments, shops and leisure facilities, which will potentially create up to 1000 new jobs. The town has also seen its first purpose-built hotel for over 80 years. While development work has slowed owing to the ‘credit crunch’, the Sands project remains very much on track. The council has just committed £3.5 million to the construction of Europe’s largest open-area theatre, seating 6500, with completion due late in 2010.

The open-air theatre project is the sort of risk that we feel local government should be taking in order to support the private sector and ensure community and economic change continues to happen during these difficult times. It’s an iconic project, highly visible and with a limited financial downside.

However, not everything goes according to plan – but that’s the nature of risk-taking. The council’s approach is about being risk aware and not risk averse; lasting change can only be achieved by bold and decisive decision-making that recognises opportunity and seeks to break new ground. We took a risk in seeking to attract Legoland to the Sands and ultimately it didn’t come off. It knocked us back initially, but no place-changing scheme should rely on one project for its long-term success. So we bounced back quickly and moved on to the next opportunity.

Generating community involvement, increased council economic support and private sector investment have seen the town begin to change from a seasonal economy to an all-year economy. In 2000, unemployment was 50 per cent higher in the winter months compared with the summer. By 2008, the difference was little more than 10 per cent.

A raft of enterprising projects has also been completed, including 60 new berths in the Marina, the first-phase refurbishment of Scarborough’s Spa Complex into a modern conference and entertainment venue. There is a new cultural offer being spearheaded by the recently refurbished Rotunda Museum, an internationally renowned centre for geology, and the Stephen Joseph Theatre, home to the playwright Sir Alan Ayckbourn. Hotels are moving upmarket with the Crown Spa Hotel becoming the first Scarborough hotel to achieve four-star status for over 15 years, and new hotels are planned – a sure sign of the increasing confidence in the town.

The momentum produced through the first seven years of the Renaissance programme is set to continue. Next stages under way include: attracting casino operators to the town; creation of a multiplex cinema (the nearest one is 40 miles away); transformation of the Futurist, Scarborough’s largest theatre complex, which is now seriously outdated; further modernisation of the Spa Complex; and upgrading of the surrounding public realm.

Despite this being a long-term project, the challenge has been to deliver community-based projects that can win the hearts, minds and backing of local people in a short space of time. We have been able to follow up with medium-term projects, which have only become visible when nearing completion. We have tried where possible to avoid raising public awareness and expectations too soon. This has also taken the short-term pressure off long-term projects like the Sands, allowing them to evolve as market conditions dictate. This ability to engage communities resulted in the council receiving the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) Award in San Diego in September 2009.

Resorts of the World

Resorts for Local Government Officers in China! - Restructuring Coastal Tourism in China in Transitional Period

The paper explores the rise and fall of Chinese coastal resorts in transitional period from the restructuring perspective. China is one of the largest oceanic nations in the world, with the coastal line stretching out as long as 18000 km. Since 1980s, coastal tourism in China has been developed at an unprecedented speed, creating numerous hospitality providers and beach resorts throughout the coastal areas. Most of them were invested by governments of different level or stateowned companies, and the customers beach resorts catered to were mainly government officials at public expense. That is to say, both supply and demand of Chinese coastal tourism development were supported and driven by government. Moreover, coastal resorts of this period were poorly planned and managed, developing in the spontaneous and unplanned manner. Silver Beach Resort in Beihai, Guangxi Province is typical in this government dominated

development, which has been deeply studied by the author. Until mid-1990s, as transition reform from planned economy to market economy was getting deeper all over the country, financial support and clients of coastal resorts were sharply cut down. More and more restrictions on government investment and spending relative to coastal resorts development were launched, causing most coastal resorts to get into trouble and some severely declined. Chinese coastal resorts were facing great challenges and need to be restructured to adapt to the new market-oriented supply and demand situations. Since the new century, some coastal resorts are successfully redeveloped in Hainan Island, which lies in southern China and is famous for

amazing tropical beach resources. Further comparative research should be made on these resorts to learn more about restructuring of Chinese coastal resorts. In short, the rise and fall of Chinese coastal resorts happened under the background of transitional reform. Therefore, the causes, consequences, and mechanisms of coastal resorts decline and restructuring are completely

different from UK and need to be addressed more specifically. Market reform should be hold on to rejuvenate the Chinese coastal resorts, and the role of local governments should also be adjusted.

Liu Jun and Ma Fenghua, South China Normal University, China