By Phil Prentice, Chief Officer of Scotland’s Towns Partnership
With the latest statistics showing 29 pub closures per week, the licensed trade has faced the same perfect storm as Scotland’s Towns Centres – the financial crisis, welfare reform and austerity, a sluggish economy and poor consumer confidence. Add to that changing shopping habits, minimum wage increases, Brexit, pension auto-enrolment, anti-smoking legislation and, of course, the rates issue.
But just like town centres, there is life in the pub yet. Recent research from the Scottish Grocers’ Federation showed that people value the pub in their town ahead of banks and fast-food takeaways, and put their local up there alongside delis and coffee shops.
In Scotland, the Government quickly recognised that as a nation of towns (and two small cities) the future of our social and economic success would depend more on what happened in the Dunfermlines, Kilmarnocks and Paisleys as opposed to Glasgow and Edinburgh. Indeed, the cities tend to mask the real trends in the industry – take out the growth of new pubs in the cities and the picture looks stark.
So the Scottish Government instructed an independent review – Malcolm Fraser’s Community and Enterprise in Town Centres, published in 2013 – and quickly came up with some new policy. This was the Town Centre Action Plan and became a starting point for embedding the principle of putting town centres first again.
That’s where Scotland’s Towns Partnership comes in. Funded by the Scottish Government, Scotland’s Towns Partnership is the nation’s largest towns collective, representing and promoting the diversity of our towns and places, and supporting those organisations and groups that have an interest in or ownership of them.
The areas we are focusing on include housing: let’s get more people living in towns again. The high street needs footfall and communities living there again. Local economies and public services should all be put back into the town centres, making everything accessible and again driving up footfall and providing reasons to go into town. Digital and planning need to be improved too. There has been some progress to date but we need more collaboration to really lift the stakes higher.
Walk into a room and ask people what they think about their town – most will offer an opinion but very few will hang around to help you fix it. And that has been our starting point – to bring together a very wide and diverse body of interests. From councils, investors, housebuilders, retailers, museums, galleries, transport providers, shopping centres, leisure, digital and community – they are all part of it.
Scotland has some of the best towns and cities in the world. We should take great pride in the fact we have some of the best scenery, destinations, heritage, culture, and food and drink in the world. Too often we take all this for granted. Look at what Paisley, Perth, Aberdeen and Dundee are all working on in terms of Culture Bids – all of this will add new colour and spark to already exciting places, and our pubs and unique Scottish culture plays a big part in this.
We have created a range of tools and evidence to help towns to build new strategies – every town in Scotland with a population of 1,000 or more (there are 479) has been built into a unique and innovative typology tool (go to www.usp.scot). This allows towns to analyse and compare themselves with similar places, to understand what type of town they are and what approaches might work.
One benefit is that if you find your town is in a cluster of 15 others – all with virtually identical characteristics – the chances are that if you have a business or product that is scalable, this should show you where to make your next investment.
We offer advice on setting up town centre partnerships or community-led initiatives and provide support for funding as well as showcasing all the best practice across the country as well as helping with everything from green space and events to creative and digital.
The pub and restaurant are both acknowledged stalwarts of the town centre and very often the beating heart of our communities. We would welcome more engagement to see how to drive footfall and success.