ONE of Scarborough's best known landmark mansions, Woodend, the former home of the literary Sitwell family, is to get a new role as a major creative industries centre.

More than 30 artisans and craft workers, currently working in workshops around the town, will have a new home if plans by the borough council get the go-ahead.

An officers' report to the authority's cabinet says the scheme is part of the multi-million pound vision to create a cultural quarter in Scarborough.

Ray Williamson, head of regeneration, said: "Scarborough has an active and talented arts community and a range of creative industry businesses, but they are disparate, unorganised and generally unsupported."

He said the £4.8m Woodend project would see new jobs created and new enterprises set up.

For many years Woodend has been a natural history museum but the building is in need of restoration.

The Sitwells lived at the house during the 19th and 20th Centuries.