Chamber and committees

Good morning to the panel. I have a couple of questions—I will direct the first one to Pauline Smith and then come to Martin Avila.

We are talking again about public funds. We know that Scottish councils are under real financial pressure, as they have been for a number of years. Will you give your opinion on the calls from the Scottish Property Federation and SURF for more resource at local authority level, particularly with regard to town champions, development officers and others within communities to support regeneration and new ideas on that side?

So it is a problem already that we need to make sure that we get right going forward. Adam Stachura, can you respond quickly as well?

I have another question before Craig McLaren answers my first one—perhaps he can answer this one as well. An issue that has been raised a couple of times on our visits—this is perhaps anecdotal—is that, in some areas, town centres have been overpedestrianised. That is not necessarily widespread.

How do we create a balance? How do we make it so that somebody who has limited mobility can get to where they need to go? How do we ensure that pedestrian areas are accessible not just for people but for businesses? As I am sure we all do whenever we are in town centres that have large pedestrian areas, we see cars and other vehicles—vans and the like—still accessing those areas, regardless of whether they are meant to.

Good morning. A number of the areas that I had intended to ask about have been covered, but I want to turn to what we will need on the infrastructure side. I think that we all accept that high streets and town centres will change over the next decade or so to respond to changing times. For example, there will be fewer offices and perhaps more accommodation.

My question is for Adrian Watson and then Craig McLaren. What needs to be improved on the infrastructure side? One such area of improvement could be broadband, which will be necessary if more hubs develop and more people live in our town centres. We have talked about active travel, but there are obviously various transport issues in town centres. How do we make sure that our town centres remain accessible to everyone, including through things such as electric vehicle parking and charging? Are there any other issues on the infrastructure side that you think are important?

I have a quick question for you, Joanne. You talked about the number of cases that have been brought under the protection of workers legislation. I think that you said that it was 300. What were the outcomes of those cases? How many convictions were there? Did they progress enough?

That is me duly warned, convener.

Good morning to the panel. We have heard that there is no one size that fits all. I represent the Highlands and Islands, where every community is different. I have a fairly general question that I will direct to Martin Newman and then David Lonsdale. What does a successful town centre look like now? What examples are there from across the United Kingdom? Also, what will successful town centres look like in, say, 20 years? Are there particular UK or Scottish examples that are on the path to making the necessary improvements?

Online shopping is seen as a danger to many businesses but there is potential for it to be a supporting factor. If you order something from a well-known online shop, it could be there the next day, and we can now order some things and receive them from a local store within an hour or two through certain delivery methods. Is that an opportunity?

We have heard a lot about the shift to online retail. At the beginning of the pandemic, a lot of small businesses that were not online had to get online quickly and offer delivery at timescales of three to five working days, and so on. We have seen an increase in app-based delivery for small superstores and a promise that your shopping can be with you in 40 minutes. Will smaller retailers on the high street use that as an opportunity to boost and support their online sales, which might keep them on the high street?

On a wider point, we also talk about empty stores. Do our high streets have too many shops or retail spaces? Will we need to see a reduction and a focus on certain shopping streets in communities? Can you see that happening?

Thank you.

The idea of repopulating our town and city centres has come through a number of times in our evidence.

David Grove, how do you, as someone who is involved in town centre development for a council, allow change, transition and development to happen, with new systems and infrastructures put in place, without that impacting on businesses that are already there?