Scarborough Council, a Disgrace to the People of Scarborough
Thomas W Fox of 25 St Sepulchre Street Scarborough is a former Head of Scarborough Police and now councillor and mayor of Scarborough. Is he and the council doing an adequate job? They are supposed to listen to the public and from certain things that have happened/are currently happening In Scarborough, I would say no they are not doing their jobs to suitable standards; otherwise we would no longer be disputing the future of the Futurist.
I was born in ’97 and I have seen this town change and it is important to note that it has changed for the worse. In the last five years we have seen an increase in shops closing and being replaced by betting shops, pound shops and takeaways.
Scarborough has always been a major tourist attraction in the past but what do we really have to offer tourists now? We have one cinema that isn’t nice to look at and isn’t nice to be in, the sign for the Hollywood plaza has fallen off and only a few letters remain and once you get inside it’s not appealing at all. We have an over-priced water park that will predominately get used during summer and the same goes for the open air theatre, it will mainly get used during summer.
We have a few clothing shops but nothing of significant importance and a night-life that is a watered-down version of what it used to be, the so-called clubs we have in town are not proper clubs, they’re just bars with a dance floor and then a load of small pubs that don’t really offer much on a night out.
Now if a shop closes because it isn’t making any money that’s understandable, but then if the council own the land and they have a vacant store not producing any money for them and William Hill turn round and say, “we would like to open a new betting shop” the council are obviously going to accept because they will start making more money for themselves via rent and business rates… it’s all about money.
However the public continue to get ignored and they continue to be pushed aside by the council because as long as the councillors are walking away with a nice big fat paycheque they’re happy, regardless of whether the public is happy or not. That is not how it should be, the public should come first and the council should act with the public’s best interests at the forefront of meetings that have an impact on us.
It certainly seems like the council do not have the public’s best interests at heart and as Mayor, Tom Fox along with the other councillors should be doing a better job and they should consider putting the public first instead of their wallets. It is this sort of malpractice that has driven a wedge between the residents of Scarborough and the council over the past several years. It is time for change, and change could not come soon enough.
Written by - Joseph Davey-Nightingale