APPROVAL has been granted for a £4m transformation of a museum in the region.

Woodend Natural History Museum, in Scarborough, will be turned into a creative industries centre.

Woodend, in The Crescent, will be an education and resource centre with 32 small business units for young entrepreneurs.

Meanwhile, town centre businessman Barry Jackson and his family have been given approval to build a store on the site of The Sunken Garden, in St Nicholas Cliff.

The council's development committee has also granted approval for Scarborough Civic Society's plans to have two bathing belle sculptures, one on the lighthouse pier, the other outside the Brunswick Centre, and has launched a £40,000 appeal to fund the work.