News / Scarborough's Secret is Out!
Scarborough's Secret is Out!
The event, which took place at the Yorkshire Events Centre, Harrogate on Friday 3 March, was attended by all the major players in the regeneration and property world from across the region as well as investors from across the UK. An estimated 1,000 delegates, participated in the one-day event which offered keynote speeches from Midge Ure, former lead singer with Ultravox, and Kjell Nordstrom, assistant professor of the Institute of International Business in Stockholm who is regarded as one of the world's top management thinkers.
Scarborough was represented by a seven strong team armed with promotion leaflets entitled "We've Got Big Plans, Scarborough's Secret is Out", detailing the towns' increasingly successful record for attracting inward investment and the exciting range of urban renaissance projects in the pipeline. The team included Tom Pindar, Lifetime President of Pindar plc the international printing group, members of Scarborough City Council, Scarborough's Urban Renaissance team and york-england.com, the inward investment board for North Yorkshire.
Commenting on the event, Rob Littlefair, Inward Investment Manager york-england.com said: "This has been a fantastic event and we have been very impressed by the level interest Scarborough has generated. We have made dozens of contacts which could potentially bring some very exciting new investment and development opportunities to the town. As home to five global businesses and countless dynamic local companies, Scarborough is increasingly considered a world class business location which has been reflected at this event."
Over £20 million in inward investment flowed into Scarborough in 2005, with a further £150 million in private investment planned for the next 2 years. To help maintain this momentum £15 million of public funds are set to be invested in Scarborough's urban renaissance project by 2009.
A number of major public and private sector investment projects in Scarborough were highlighted at the event. These included:
- The Sands Development: A £120 million development to create an initial 100 sea front apartments with longer term plans for a 147 bed leisure hotel, indoor water park and over 300 holiday properties.
- Scarborough Business Park: A planned development of 80 acres, delivering over 1 million sq ft of flexible commercial space, which is proving very attractive to investors.
- Harbour Developments: £3 million of public sector investment aimed at developing the harbour area into a high value tourism and marine business location.
- Creative Industries Centre: A centre, scheduled for completion by the end of 2007, which will build on the University's focus on digital arts to become a high profile hub for this sector, as well as helping to develop Scarborough's cultural quarter.
- The Futurist Theatre: Scarborough Borough Council has already secured £4 million to develop the site into a mixed use development and are seeking expressions of interest to further develop plans to include some conferencing/performance facility.
