Army of volunteers band together to restore civic pride in historic seaside town

The community and the council have joined together in East Yorkshire to revamp run-down buildings, tackle crime and rebuild civic pride in Bridlington town centre.

East Riding of Yorkshire Council is working alongside the Bridlington Ambassadors, a community interest campaign, and the community voluntary group Brightening Up Bridlington to improve properties across the town.

Together, the ambassadors have created a new Property Pride campaign, which is currently being rolled out across the core streets of the town centre.

The campaign is part of the ‘Clear Hold Build’ scheme, a multi-agency effort to tackle serious and organised crime and antisocial behaviour in Bridlington area.

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East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s planning enforcement and antisocial behaviour teams are playing a key role, alongside Humberside Police and other agencies.

The work is starting to show real results, with two semi-derelict properties revamped to improve them temporarily until new buyers can be found.

Nigel Brignall is the Interim Community Safety Partnership Manager at East Riding of Yorkshire Council.

His department, working in tandem with Humberside Police, regularly tackles localised nuisance, drug-related disorder, and rowdy behaviour by securing closure orders on properties and enforcing Public Spaces Protection Orders.

He told GB News about the project in Bridlington and said: "It's a national initiative to over 50 schemes running throughout the country.

"Within the East Riding, we have one, which is in Bridlington South, and it's linked to serious organised crime.

"The initial phase is to clear out the organised criminals in Bridlington specifically linked to drug-related activity, and then we take some action to hold the area to try and prevent either the criminals returning, or new ones trying to take over.

"But then the key thing for us is to build a better, safer Bridlington and that's where the local community come in. We work in partnership with the likes of Bridlington Ambassadors and many others, and they do a fantastic job helping us to build the better Bridlington.

"Then the intention is longer term, it will be a it's already a nice place, but an even nicer place for people to live and visit."

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Bridlington has a crime rate higher than the East Riding of Yorkshire average, with an overall rate of approximately 137 crimes per 1,000 people, according to liveable.co.uk, and efforts have been taken to clamp down on drugs.

Within the East Riding, Bridlington features very highly on the deprivation index and features highly in crime levels in comparison to other areas in the East Riding, making it a target town for the council to improve.

"The Bridlington South project is specifically looking at the serious organised crime, so it's looking our, our drug dealers, our organised criminal groups, who are or were operating after Bridlington to target them both in terms of the key suppliers, but also those who actually supply on their behalf," said Nigel Brignall is the Interim Community Safety Partnership Manager at East Riding of Yorkshire Council.

"Our key focus wants to tackle that and make the streets safer and cleaner and better for our residents and visitors.

Monthly volunteer litter picks have also been undertaken by Brightening Up Bridlington since 2014, in areas known to attract litter, while the ambassadors are now running an eyesore audit, to highlight and prompt rectification of some long-term problem commercial properties.

Martyn Coltman, a Bridlington Ambassador, and chair of Brightening Up Bridlington, together with a group of 40 volunteers give up their time to clean up the seaside town and filled a skip full of rubbish, including mattresses and mirrors, when GB News joined the group for their July tidy-up.

"There's a concentrated effort in this part of the town to deal with clearing out issues of anti-social behaviour and drug problems, which has already happened," said Martyn Coltman, touching on the 'Clear, Hold, Build' scheme.

"Then it's holding the grounds to make sure that new drug dealers don't come in, and then it's building a more resilient community. So that's what we're now doing, we're helping to improve the streets for everyone who lives here, by taking our rubbish from their own front yards and things that they may struggle to get rid of, because there is a there is a charge for large items and not everyone can afford that.

"So we've been very kindly given free skips by a local skip company, a Brunton skip hire, and we have no problem filling the skip.

"We leaflet the streets in advance to make sure that we have permission to take stuff and the residents come out on the day and it's about them being given the chance to make their street better as well, make sense of satisfaction.

"We've noticed over the years that the town has improved and loads more people have taken it on board and they're doing their own litter picks or joining us.

"It's the small things that make a big difference, it's rebuilding the civic pride. We have a wealth of lovely Victorian properties that have gone through various ownership processes, from being Victorian homes to being guesthouses, to some becoming homes of multiple occupation.

"Then people have bought them and turned them back into nice properties again. So it's kind of a cycle that's ongoing. We want people to have pride back in their place and that's what it's about."

To find out more about Brightening Up Bridlington, click HERE.

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