News Archive
Scarborough completes hat-trick of awards
26th Nov 2009
At a recent awards ceremony held in London, Scarborough has been named as the best town in Britain.
The North Yorkshire coastal resort beat off stiff competition from Chester and Cambridge to claim the award from the Academy of Urbanism. This award completes a hat-trick of success for Scarborough as the town was also crowned winner of the 2009 European Enterprise Awards and finished top in a poll as the most enterprising place in Britain at the Enterprising Britain Awards in 2008.
Architect John Thompson, who is the chairman of The Academy of Urbanism, said:
“The awards were created to recognise places and people that have helped transform local quality of life through good design and planning. Scarborough is an inspirational, community-led example of this.”
As part of this latest success Scarborough was visited by a panel of judges in order for a report to be formed. In the report the town was praised for a variety of reasons. One of the main factors was its successful local partnership with Yorkshire Forward’s Renaissance Towns and Cities programme. The vision of this partnership is to encourage investment in the town and for local people to unite in order to form action groups to work on themed regeneration projects. A successful example of this is the restoration of the South Bay shelters undertaken by Scarborough’s Civic Society. It is hoped that in the future more such groups will be formed to work on other themed topics including tourism, urban space and the arts and culture.
Nick Taylor, who is Scarborough’s current urban renaissance manager said:
“It’s a fantastic feeling to have our work recognised in this way. I am particularly pleased for all those people involved in our town’s renaissance.”
In being crowned best town in Britain at this latest awards ceremony, and therefore completing a hat-trick of success, the profile of Scarborough has increased dramatically over the last couple of months. It is hoped that this increase in profile will encourage more people to take short breaks at the various Scarborough hotels or visit the popular local attractions that the award winning town has to offer.
