Town Centre Action Plan Review – Common Weal Response

Stephen Richard — Sat, 04 Sep 2021 08:47:11 +0000

Primary Author or Creator

Craig Dalzell

Stephen Richard Sat, 09/04/2021 - 09:47

Additional Author(s) / Creators

Common Weal

Date Published

Thu, 08/20/2020 - 12:00

Category

Community

Type of Resource

consultation response

Fast Facts

Town centre regeneration has been a topic subject to dichotomies in Scottish political thinking. For every person who believes that “something should be done” to reverse the long term decay of our towns, there are others who simply accept that the decline is either inevitable or even hold it to be a positive thing. Common Weal rejects this latter view especially as the pandemic and lockdown has demonstrated just how vital local community is in times of crisis.

More details

― The Covid Pandemic has radically changed many of our work and life patterns. Cities in particular have been affected by a reduction in footfall.

― Town and Community Centres must place themselves ready to become a locus of community cohesion and participation.

― Towns and cities will have to reckon with the overvaluation of commercial properties such as offices no longer required due to home working.

― They should institute a “Use it or Lose it” policy whereby owners of these buildings must put it into productive use or face a Compulsory Sales/Purchase Order that would allow communities to take over stranded assets and put them to the best social use.

― The challenge of retrofitting houses to Green New Deal standards is likely to dominate much of the construction sector in the coming years but less has been said about commercial properties. Town centre planning strategies must address this gap especially as commercial properties often require much more heating per square metre of floor space than a typical house.

Resource Address (URL)

https://commonweal.scot/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/TCAP-Response.pdf

Keywords

Language English