Before the May 2019 election the Conservative controlled Scarborough Borough Council allocated £1.2m to be spent on the regeneration of Eastfield. However, due to the election result, it was left to Labour to deliver on the regeneration. Indeed, at the election Eastfield Councillor and SBC Cabinet member Tony Randerson ran on a slogan of “focusing on the regeneration of Eastfield”.
Since then the Labour Council has been unable to deliver and bring these projects into being. Last month an FOI request revealed that only £400k of the £1.2m promised had been delivered. With no estimates for a start or end date for any of the work. At a Cabinet meeting today (March 14th) we were supposed to receive an update on Eastfield regeneration and hopefully find out what’s happening with the remaining money.
However, at the meeting, the report was withdrawn without explanation. As a result, we were unable to ask any questions on the matter or provide any form of scrutiny. Given that this was the last regular meeting of the Council before it is abolished at the end of the month, there will not be another chance for scrutiny of the last four years of Labour control.
Present at the meeting was Conservative Deputy Group Leader, Councillor Heather Phillips, she said:
“Labour has talked about Eastfield a lot. They put out all these lovely press releases with high-minded projects and how much money they had allocated to them. We began raising the alarm in May of last year that nothing was being delivered on the ground. Labour has been strangely quiet on the matter.
There has been a total failure to deliver on the promised regeneration. Here we are with Labour riding off into the sunset, there isn’t an election for them, no more meetings. I somehow think in a year or two we’ll see a deflection from Labour Councillors with them somehow blaming the Conservative Party or North Yorkshire Council.
You would have thought that the Labour Councillor who represents Eastfield would have been keen to see projects delivered in their ward. Instead, when the report was withdrawn, there was silence. One can only assume that they pulled this report to save themselves the embarrassment.
I’m hoping that the new North Yorkshire Council will be able to pick up the pieces of what’s left. I somehow think that Labour will be much more vocal in demanding action with North Yorkshire as opposed to the Council they were running.”