Chamber and committees

On the question on identifying ownership, do you have any solutions or do you see where the fault might lie?

My questions are about design, delivery and improving town centres. A lot of the stuff that the committee discusses involves high-level policy and legislation, but most issues relate to quite small things that happen on the ground, so I have a number of questions about how you communicate at the local level.

How do you rate individual town centres? Do you provide awards and do you name and shame the worst and give examples for groups? A huge variety of groups and organisations are looking at improving town centres, and it is not always a simple process to find them. There could be business improvement district teams, community councils, business associations and development trusts. How do you feed detail into those? For instance, in Banchory, which is my home town, would it be possible to see things being rated by those whom you represent?

Given the number of bodies out there with which you need to communicate, the overlap between your organisations and the fact that there are limited resources, how much do you work together in communicating with those groups?

—[Inaudible.]—Dumfries.

Perhaps Nicoletta Primo can say a bit more about how Sight Scotland communicates with the groups that I mentioned, such as BID teams. You lobby MSPs and send us briefings. Do you do the same with those types of organisations?

Thank you. That is the first that I have heard of those audits, so you might want to share them with MSPs when they happen in their areas.

Will you expand on your comment that resources constrain the use of CPOs? Is that the resource to enact CPOs—the lawyers to track down owners and undertake the purchasing process—or is it the resource to pay for buildings?

Thank you. My other question was to Craig McLaren.

I have two relatively specific questions. The first is for Stephen Lewis. Yesterday, the British Property Federation trailed views in the media on improving compulsory purchase orders, and the Queen’s speech included something on that as well, which would apply in England. Accepting that the bar should be high, I give you the opportunity to explain for the record why councils do not use CPOs effectively or at all.

My second question is for Craig McLaren. I will ask it now, just to give him a moment to think about it, as it is probably quite tricky. We have a number of issues with split-use buildings. You just touched on issues with conversion; some properties are inappropriate for residential use. You have mostly talked about large urban areas and shopping centres, but there are a lot of flats over shops in my constituency, and barriers for one often have an impact on the other, to the detriment of both. Will you share solutions for such situations?

I ask Stephen Lewis to go first, followed by Craig McLaren.

Thank you—I have no further questions. I just refer members to my registered interest in relation to property.

Thank you. I am sure that the subject will be revisited in the future.