Up to £350,000 could be spent on a council feasibility study into the future of Scarborough’s Brunswick Centre.

The funding for the ailing shopping centre was approved at a recent meeting of North Yorkshire Council’s performance monitoring executive.

It comes a year and a half after councillors approved plans for a new town centre cinema in the Brunswick Centre describing it as “a game changer for Scarborough”.

Scarborough Group International (SGI), which bought the centre, has not yet announced who will run the cinema.

Speaking at the recent meeting, Coun Mark Crane, executive member for open to business, said: “Having visited the centre recently it is in need of some work doing – it’s a slightly sad part of Scarborough at the moment.

“This is money going into Scarborough and hopefully the feasibility study will come up with a plan and approval for a new centre which will, I think, encourage people to visit Scarborough more often and quite importantly for residents to enjoy better leisure facilities.”

The Scarborough Group first submitted its multi-million-pound plan to transform the 1990s centre into a major cinema and leisure destination in 2021.

However, the chosen partner has not yet been named publicly amid ongoing “legal matters”.

Coun Heather Phillips, executive member for corporate services, said: “I think this is a vote of confidence in Scarborough from North Yorkshire Council.

“I’m asked all the time, what’s good about Scarborough – and our high street has struggled – but this has been the anchor of our high street strategy which is improving the leisure facility for everybody, and improving the nighttime economy, drawing people in.

“So I’m very happy that North Yorkshire Council is seen to be working with a very important local but international partner to deliver the next step in our hoped-for regeneration of the town centre.”

Since the closure of Debenhams, many of the shop spaces inside the centre have remained vacant and boarded up.

The cinema is set to take up to 2,700 sqm out of Brunswick’s almost 14,000 sqm of space, with the exact number of screens and the size of the cinema set to be agreed with the operator.

Coun Simon Myers: “It’s very obvious when you visit Scarborough, particularly that part of the town, what a key role this building could hold in the revitalisation of this part of Scarborough.

“So it’s really excellent news that the council is getting behind a vision to see a development there and a repurposing and uplifting of the whole area, so I’m very glad this is coming forward.”

Deputy leader, Coun Gareth Dadd said he did “not want to dampen spirits” but reminded colleagues that “this is not beyond scrutiny, this is just the first step on the long path”.

He added: “I’m not saying that this will be delivered next month, this is merely a feasibility study, it’s not an open-ended cheque on behalf of the authority at all. It will be challenged, it will be scrutinised.”

Council officers said the study would be used to establish “what is a fair amount of public funding required to develop this scheme and whether or not that morphs into something else”.