A Skipton property developer is undertaking a massive £200-million regeneration of Scarborough's North Bay.

The Zenith project is to be the biggest leisure development of its kind in the country and is intended to revive the town's appeal as a holiday resort.

For Skipton's Grayling Sports and Leisure, the mammoth initiative, sparked by Scarborough Borough Council, is by far its biggest contract to date.

And the firm is getting local businesses involved in the two-million square foot Zenith development, enlisting the help of Skipton architects, the Bowman Riley Partnership, to design part of the leisure complex.

At his Newmarket Street base, Grayling's managing director Ken Gowan cannot hide his excitement.

He said: 'We are very pleased to have got this project. It's going to be the biggest leisure facility of its type in the UK. It will totally change the whole of Scarborough, making it more of a national resort.

'We have beaten some really big competition to win this contract, some major national companies.

'I think we were successful because we had researched heavily and spent the previous three years really trying to understand the leisure industry, and not just at the multi-plex cinema level.

'We had found a lot of new ideas from around the world to put forward, and became experts in knowing what ingredients made a good leisure development.

'We have brought in all the architects and designers ourselves. In fact, we are using Skipton firm Bowman Riley for part of the complex.'

Re-building the North Bay will mean bulldozing away many derelict attractions from Scarborough's heyday.

But their replacements will be among the most innovative leisure facilities in the world, and one or two elements will be completely unique.

A first for the UK will be the country's first ever Surfpool, in which surfers can ride a wave built up artificially inside the Ocean Centre, which will also house a warm covered seawater swimming area.

And The Snow House will provide an exciting opportunity for skiers to enjoy the country's first artificially generated snow.

Such facilities will surround the centrepiece of Zenith, The Peasholm Gap Complex; a multi-level retail and restaurant centre focused around a stunning glass atrium.

Construction of the development, which rivals the Millennium Dome in scale, is set to begin early next year, and Ken is hoping to see Zenith completed by 2003.

Before he dashed to yet another important meeting to organise part of the UFO Experience in Scarborough, he added: 'We are having to deal with all sorts of creative people to get this off the ground.

'I'm just going to see a man with a giant collection of sci-fi movie memorabilia, and we hope to use it for the UFO Experience.

'People will flock from all over the country, even the world, to come and see the transformed Scarborough.'

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.