MEET THE TEAM
Toby Hyam
Toby Hyam co-founded Creative Space Management in 2006 having worked across public and private sectors developing expertise in cultural regeneration, creative workspace and creative industries.
Creative Space, now an EOT (100% employee owned from 2020), pioneered establishing high quality workspaces across the north of England including Round Foundry Media Centre in Leeds, The Toffee Factory in Ouseburn (Newcastle), The Core at Newcastle Helix, The Beam in Sunderland, Electric Works in Sheffield, AMP Technology Centre, Rotherham and many others where he and his team provided long term support and guidance helping to establish communities of businesses providing high quality jobs and investment into local economies.
As managing director for almost 20 years Toby established an innovative business developing it from a start-up to have 40 staff and responsible for multi-tenanted building facilities across multiple cities and towns. His team also provided consultancy and advisory services across the UK including (for example) their work in Hull which led to the development of The Fruit Market on Humber Street and C4DI, or in Colchester, Essex where they developed the initial proposals for 43 Queen St, a new digital hub for the town.
With a long-term commitment to maximising economic impact on local and regional economies, tackling challenging locations and buildings not considered viable, the business successfully delivered measurable long-term impact for its public and private sector clients. During this time, Toby led Creative Space to win multiple awards for innovation, customer service excellence and creating sustainable places.
Since leaving the company with a younger leadership team, Toby has contributed to Scarborough’s Town Team and is committed to helping reactivate the high street with stronger local support and a greater awareness of its strengths. In particular, living in the town centre he has helped to activate Bar Street, celebrating its mixed uses of residential, retail, leisure and small-scale studios.
Toby is now playing a leading role in the development of This is Scarborough, an initiative to tackle the lack of place branding for the town as well as coordinating efforts to share baseline data about the town with local businesses, the public sector and potential inward investors.
Yolanda Carslaw
Yolanda Carslaw has worked as a magazine and newspaper journalist for 23 years.
For more than a decade she worked as a writer and sub-editor at The Telegraph, on the arts, features and travel desks; she was a regular contributor to Country Life, Wanderlust and Horse & Hound and has edited and undertaken redesigns at niche activity titles.
In 2024 she founded Scarborough Spy, the A5 print-only what’s on guide, which is published eight times a year and covers town happenings from music to theatre to art and from activities to sport to festivals, comprising interviews, profiles and stories as well as listings.
Yolanda, who grew up in Sussex and worked mainly in the south-east until the age of 40, moved to a village 10 miles from Scarborough in 2013.
Caroline Routh
Caroline Routh is the executive director and joint chief executive of the Stephen Joseph Theatre, North Yorkshire’s only professional producing theatre and one with a national and international reputation. Having lived in Scarborough for six years, she is a strong believer in the town’s potential and committed to working to deliver change. As such she is actively involved in a number of initiatives, including chairing the Scarborough Fair Advisory Group and the Town Centre Team, and membership of the Tourism Advisory Board and the Town Board.
Caroline has worked in regional producing theatre for over 35 years. Prior to arriving in Scarborough she was the executive director at Nuffield Southampton Theatres, where she oversaw the company’s move into and launch of its new £30m city centre venue. She has also worked as administrative director at Battersea Arts Centre and as Executive Director for Northern Stage in Newcastle, where she successfully led the £9.5M refurbishment of the theatre.
Caroline was the co-founder and co-director of The Empty Space, a company producing and developing theatre in the north east of England; and executive producer at Musical Theatre Network, seeking out and supporting the best new British musical theatre. In a freelance capacity she has acted as producer for a number of companies, including Greyscale, The Paper Birds and Polish company Piesn Koszla and has toured work nationally and internationally.
Chris Sands
Chris Sands is a branding expert who, in his 20+ year career as The Good Company, has worked with everything from arts organisations to local government, the music business to regional parks, from big corporate organisations to community-led projects. Over the last decade, he has concentrated his work on town centres and high streets, winning awards and recognition along the way.
He’s perhaps best known for starting Totally Locally, a free, open source marketing kit for towns to help keep the independent high streets of the UK (and now the world!) alive and thriving. Totally Locally’s methodology and resources have been implemented by over 100 towns in the UK and many across the world have joined in – from Australia & New Zealand to France, Ireland, Italy and more. Many of these towns report huge changes in the shopping habits and businesses collaborating; creating strong local economies.
Totally Locally runs two national events per year which see between 60-100 towns taking part, increasing footfall and promoting collaboration between businesses, residents and local authorities.
Chris has worked on many place brand and regeneration projects – nationally – including the re-opening of award-winning Piece Hall Halifax, The South Pennines Regional Park, Hebden Bridge town centre, Flood resilience in the Calder Valley, The Sandstone Ridge in Cheshire, Halifax Borough Market, – and internationally in the Barossa Region of South Australia and Melbourne, Victoria.
He has worked with numerous towns on projects to help build resilient local economies, including creating specialist markets, social spaces, pop up shops, events, effective collaborative working groups, campaigns and more.
Spending most of his working life in West Yorkshire, Chris moved to the Yorkshire Coast in 2022, and has since worked on projects in Scarborough including brand redevelopment with CaVCA, and, alongside Toby, to develop the structure and strategy for This Is Scarborough.