:00:03. > :00:12.Government. It keeps us in touch with reality and ordinary people.
:00:13. > :00:18.
:00:18. > :00:21.Tonight on Newsnight Scotland: What sort of town do you want to live in?
:00:21. > :00:24.A new report commissioned by the government describes a country whose
:00:24. > :00:27.town centres are all too often full of empty shops and empty of people.
:00:27. > :00:30.But does it come up with any sensible proposals to do anything
:00:31. > :00:34.about it? Good evening. A successful town
:00:34. > :00:38.centre needs not just shops but people living in it. We don't all
:00:38. > :00:42.drive, so out of town shopping doesn't suit everyone. It may be
:00:42. > :00:46.stating the obvious but does today's report come up with any new ideas to
:00:46. > :00:51.change things? First, Andrew Black reports.
:00:51. > :00:56.The economic downturn has had a tough effect on many towns in
:00:56. > :01:02.Scotland. Here the local council is looking to turn its fortunes around
:01:02. > :01:09.with an ambitious development plan for the future. The number of to let
:01:09. > :01:19.signs on Don Barton's high-street tell a familiar story. We are right
:01:19. > :01:22.on the banks of the River. The local council has been making strides to
:01:22. > :01:30.rejuvenate Dunbarton and wants to attract new investment to rejuvenate
:01:30. > :01:35.the town centre. We have spent money on the walkways, lighting and public
:01:35. > :01:41.seating. Trying to encourage people to use this as part of the town
:01:41. > :01:47.centre environment. Even so the council is under no illusions as to
:01:47. > :01:52.the scale of the task. I think people look at the town centre as a
:01:52. > :01:57.barometer of how the town is doing. Like all town centres we have
:01:57. > :02:02.difficulties and out of town shopping. What we need to do is try
:02:02. > :02:05.to make sure the town centres have links and they can survive in
:02:05. > :02:15.today's economy and where there is some out of town shopping, we need
:02:15. > :02:21.
:02:21. > :02:24.to link it as best we can and that is what we are trying to do in
:02:24. > :02:27.Dunbarton as town is just at the side of the town. We want people to
:02:27. > :02:29.come to all parts of Dunbarton and ensure the money they spend is spent
:02:29. > :02:32.wisely and locally. Today a government ordered review into the
:02:32. > :02:42.issues affecting towns like Dunbarton published its findings,
:02:42. > :03:00.
:03:00. > :03:05.organisation which speaks for high-street businesses but it warned
:03:05. > :03:12.that putting it into practice was another matter altogether. The aims
:03:12. > :03:16.of the report are laudable. We are delighted with it has been
:03:16. > :03:21.acknowledged in black and white, we have been arguing for public bodies
:03:21. > :03:26.to think of the town centre first. The real test is when the chips are
:03:26. > :03:30.down and somebody has got to make the financial decision, do they put
:03:30. > :03:37.these principles into reality and put town centres first? That would
:03:37. > :03:43.be the hard bit. The north-east town of enquiry has been making a push to
:03:43. > :03:53.promote its local economy. People here seem happy with what is on
:03:53. > :03:53.
:03:53. > :03:58.offer. It is pretty good. Lots of choice. The only downside is
:03:58. > :04:05.parking, Inverurie does not have much parking but otherwise it is
:04:05. > :04:11.pretty vibrant. It is a nice place. I come here to go to the nice
:04:11. > :04:18.cafes, quite a lot of shops. I live six miles down the road, this is not
:04:18. > :04:21.my town centre but it is great. I love it. I wouldn't move back to
:04:21. > :04:28.Aberdeen at all. Back in Dunbarton, council leaders say they are
:04:28. > :04:33.determined to stick to their decision but it will be tough. West
:04:33. > :04:37.Dunbartonshire's own investment plan say it could be up to 15 years
:04:37. > :04:40.before some developments can be completed.
:04:40. > :04:43.I'm joined now by the lead author of that report, architect Malcolm
:04:43. > :04:47.Fraser. Also here is Glasgow University's professor of property
:04:47. > :04:55.and urban studies, David Adams. And in Edinburgh, economist, journalist
:04:55. > :05:00.and former councillor George Kerevan. Let's come on to talk about
:05:00. > :05:04.some detail stuff in a moment but I just wanted to highlight some sort
:05:04. > :05:09.of general thoughts, Malcolm Fraser. Few people would read your
:05:09. > :05:17.report and say, I am not having any of that. The problem is, I am not
:05:17. > :05:21.sure we don't have more ambiguous feelings about towns. All the
:05:21. > :05:26.politicians say your idea is fabulous about getting people to
:05:26. > :05:31.live in town centres but the last 100 years have been about suburbs.
:05:31. > :05:37.People like living in suburbs rather than in town centres. Some people do
:05:37. > :05:43.and some people don't. A lot of people would quite like to live in
:05:43. > :05:48.the heart of their community. Young people, maybe old people. Not
:05:48. > :05:54.everybody has a car. One thing we have identified is there is a huge
:05:54. > :05:58.number of empty flats above shops in towns. It would be great to get them
:05:58. > :06:05.into the social housing system, to get housing associations offering
:06:05. > :06:11.the owners of these properties a package so that we can put young
:06:11. > :06:17.married couples or old people into there. Doesn't that get to my
:06:17. > :06:21.point? People have voted with their feet. I think what has happened in
:06:21. > :06:27.town centres over many years is there has been political and market
:06:27. > :06:30.failure so we have had a town centre policy for two decades but when it
:06:30. > :06:37.comes to the crunch, politicians still allow large out-of-town
:06:37. > :06:41.stores. Let's forget about the stores. I am suggesting that people
:06:41. > :06:46.want to live in the suburbs, when they can afford to they would rather
:06:46. > :06:52.like to buy their own property and they would like to do that in the
:06:52. > :06:57.suburbs thank you very much, with a bit of greenery. Not always. There
:06:57. > :07:02.are plenty of very, very expensive townhouses in Edinburgh and Glasgow
:07:02. > :07:09.and all over the place. The number of people that live in my town,
:07:09. > :07:14.Edinburgh, pay an awful lot for the house and love walking to work.
:07:14. > :07:20.Edinburgh is not Dunbarton, or the plethora of other towns around
:07:20. > :07:25.Scotland. In that case you have not got to think simply about living in
:07:25. > :07:29.the town centre but facilities, schools, parks, the whole
:07:29. > :07:37.environment. People do not just buy a house, they buy an environment to
:07:37. > :07:42.live in. Another contradiction, perhaps in us, is we all say local
:07:42. > :07:45.shops are fantastic, we want to see high-street driving. And we all chat
:07:45. > :07:51.to each other about it as we are driving to the out-of-town
:07:51. > :07:57.supermarket. Our desires for how our built environment is are in conflict
:07:57. > :08:03.with each other. You make a good case. The numbers are a bit against
:08:03. > :08:10.you. 40% of people in Scotland still live in small towns, not in Glasgow
:08:10. > :08:16., Edinburgh or suburbs. I mean people in small towns still like to
:08:16. > :08:22.live on the outskirts rather than actually above the high Street.
:08:22. > :08:26.people like to live where there is something going on. Not just a shop.
:08:26. > :08:31.I live in Edinburgh which is about to double its population in August
:08:31. > :08:35.because of the festival. One of the problems is that politicians have
:08:35. > :08:43.not grasped what they need to do to make town 's work and make things
:08:43. > :08:47.happen. This new report, it is a very good report, it is written in
:08:47. > :08:56.plain English and is worth a read, but we get one of these every two or
:08:56. > :09:05.three years. We had won in 2006, one in 2009, one in 2011, then Mary
:09:05. > :09:10.Portas report. It seems politicians substitute producing reports on town
:09:10. > :09:14.centre regeneration rather than doing anything. I think the Minister
:09:14. > :09:18.should vow not to do another report for a decade, she should sit down
:09:18. > :09:27.with the leaders of the small towns in Scotland and come up with a plan
:09:27. > :09:29.and go and implement it. There you are. But it is a contradiction, the
:09:29. > :09:35.only reason that out-of-town supermarkets do so well is because
:09:35. > :09:41.people like to shop in them. It is nice you went to Inverurie and
:09:41. > :09:46.Dunbarton. In Inverurie you saw people that were happy to be there.
:09:46. > :09:50.We are social animals. We get our goods out of town but we do not feel
:09:50. > :10:00.as connected and that is what towns do. I think we denigrate the
:10:00. > :10:07.
:10:07. > :10:11.strength... But David, people vote with their feet. They go to where
:10:11. > :10:20.they want to shop. The issue is, to the government want to implement
:10:20. > :10:25.this policy or is this just another report? Some of the specific ideals,
:10:25. > :10:30.we should explain sequential testing. You are a supermarket, you
:10:30. > :10:38.want to put it in the town centre, if not, the outskirts of the town
:10:38. > :10:43.centre, if not, the outskirts of the town... What does that mean? I am a
:10:43. > :10:49.supermarket, I want to build a gigantic building. I cannot do it in
:10:49. > :10:54.town, that's OK, I will do it out of town. Should it be that I'd be
:10:54. > :11:01.saying something for the town centre? The courts seem to take the
:11:01. > :11:04.idea that if they can't that in the town centre, tough. It is one for
:11:04. > :11:11.the lawyers. But it really puts the onus on the supermarkets to find a
:11:11. > :11:18.seat. What we need to do is put the onus on the local council to provide
:11:18. > :11:20.sites. Even if it means that they have to buy up land and create those
:11:20. > :11:29.sites themselves. Otherwise supermarkets will go where they want
:11:29. > :11:32.to go. We want to extend this principle. In Edinburgh at the
:11:32. > :11:38.moment they are trying to put thousands of houses in the green
:11:38. > :11:44.belt when the centre of town is empty. You should not put facilities
:11:44. > :11:49.out of town where you have to build new schools, sewers, roads, then
:11:49. > :11:54.spend money closing down other schools, it is simple common sense
:11:54. > :12:00.and for Scotland to do that, it would be a massive thing. We need to
:12:00. > :12:09.build in town before we build out. can see that being feasible with
:12:09. > :12:17.housing, less salt with his Mrs. You would get the same problem. -- less
:12:17. > :12:26.so with businesses. A test called Gates in this would see judges
:12:26. > :12:36.saying, that is OK. -- test court case. It is not just character and
:12:36. > :12:39.
:12:39. > :12:43.stack. We are incentivising local authorities. -- and stack. Do you
:12:43. > :12:46.think sequential development can work? There was a suggestion in
:12:46. > :12:53.England that in England that they are should just be a policy that you
:12:53. > :12:57.must develop inside towns. That would need intervention from the
:12:57. > :13:03.secretary of state to overrule that. I am not certain if the government
:13:03. > :13:07.in Westminster has decided against that just yet to make its mind up.
:13:07. > :13:14.The reality of the planning process is that whatever the plans, each
:13:14. > :13:21.application can be contested. Supermarkets can fight it and it can
:13:21. > :13:26.take five, ten years. If you had an American style system of zoning,
:13:27. > :13:32.this is a zone, you can do it in there, just go ahead, if you had
:13:32. > :13:38.that kind of approach, you could simplify things. You could zone for
:13:38. > :13:41.particular kinds of shopping and businesses. But unless we start with
:13:41. > :13:50.as zoning process and get away from a contested process, it will never
:13:50. > :13:53.work. What would that mean in practice? If a shop or business
:13:53. > :14:03.wanted to set up in something defined as the town centre, you
:14:03. > :14:11.would not be able to object? Exactly. You zone out. That area,
:14:11. > :14:15.that size, that architecture, if you take the boxes, go ahead. Then the
:14:15. > :14:20.political debate would be about the zoning. That is what happens in the
:14:20. > :14:29.United States. Once you have as zoning plan, you can go off and do
:14:29. > :14:33.that. In the UK, each application is a fight. George is suggesting we
:14:33. > :14:39.transform the planning system entirely. If we did so, it made take
:14:39. > :14:48.five years. What we want to move now with existing legislator believers.
:14:49. > :14:52.To incentivise, to empower local communities, to take over buildings.
:14:52. > :15:00.Throughout this I have focused on using the existing levers so that we
:15:00. > :15:10.do not just talk. What if we became more like America? So you are not
:15:10. > :15:11.
:15:11. > :15:17.against it... Absolutely not, we just need to move now. What do you
:15:17. > :15:24.make of the theory that if you buy something new outside of the town
:15:24. > :15:32.you do not pay VAT, but let them towns, 20%. -- with them. Is that a
:15:32. > :15:39.problem? Absolutely. It has been raised on numerous occasions that
:15:39. > :15:44.the Treasury but I have yet to hear a reason why that is justifiable.
:15:44. > :15:47.is not very complex. That is the reason why it does not change. But
:15:47. > :15:54.unfortunately that is the British context, we cannot do anything about
:15:54. > :15:58.that. I have noted that. But the government strategy is much the same
:15:58. > :16:04.as what you set out in your document. They have signed up. So
:16:04. > :16:10.why wouldn't you want change? been campaigning for ten years and
:16:10. > :16:15.not changed the mind of government. Others have. We just note that as
:16:15. > :16:23.one of the levers that we cannot get our hands on. We would like to
:16:23. > :16:28.though. You would -- you have another idea about something going
:16:28. > :16:36.wrong. If there are empty premises, rents should fall. That isn't
:16:36. > :16:44.happening, so it is not a real market. It is not. It is constrained
:16:44. > :16:48.by valuation and ownership. Vacancy rates are ten, 15% in some towns.
:16:48. > :16:55.Why do rents not fall to a level where they are affordable to new
:16:55. > :17:05.businesses? They do not fall quickly or easily. Take Dumbarton. What do
:17:05. > :17:15.you do? The chap from the council was talking about the Reverend even.
:17:15. > :17:18.
:17:18. > :17:24.It is as if the town is inside out! -- River Leven. Dumbarton has much
:17:24. > :17:34.to get out of this. You can fly from -- into Glasgow airport, yacht under
:17:34. > :17:35.
:17:35. > :17:39.the marina, the market is enormous. This is yet to be constructive?
:17:39. > :17:44.if Dumbarton looks to grow business rates, leisure, instead of moving
:17:44. > :17:52.council offices outside town, pay themselves a rate instead of going
:17:52. > :17:56.to government, new income streams, that incentivise is a place. George,
:17:56. > :18:00.you pointed out in an article that it does not matter what the rules
:18:00. > :18:08.and regulations are, you need imagination. You give the example of
:18:08. > :18:13.Wetton, which we invented itself -- reinvented itself as a book town.
:18:13. > :18:19.Not everyone can do that. But perhaps that is what is lacking,
:18:19. > :18:26.creativity and imagination. What Malcolm does say is what he is
:18:26. > :18:32.famous for, the cultural dimension. And I am with him there. It is not
:18:32. > :18:36.just bricks and mortar. If things are going on, people will come. One
:18:36. > :18:41.really interesting idea in the report is that town centres first
:18:41. > :18:47.mean that cultural agencies must get on board. Creative Scotland and the
:18:47. > :18:52.Heritage lottery fund. They must think twice about bringing money
:18:53. > :18:56.into town centres. And government must stop mouthing platitudes.
:18:56. > :19:02.Governments like to please people and like things to happen quickly.
:19:02. > :19:07.So we have a good regeneration fund, really good projects, but it
:19:08. > :19:15.tries to do things in a couple of years. Proper regeneration can take
:19:15. > :19:20.a decade. Festivals, activities. We must think longer term. The problem
:19:20. > :19:30.is that not everyone can have a cultural festival. Of course they
:19:30. > :19:32.
:19:32. > :19:36.can! Everyone must play to their strengths. Forgive me, but is that
:19:36. > :19:44.not one of the platitudes? Some of these towns do not have strengths.
:19:44. > :19:48.Perhaps they once did, and could do, but as of now, they do not. They may
:19:48. > :19:54.lack the local leadership to identify strengths. We are running
:19:54. > :19:58.out of time and I wanted it on to what George said at the start. No
:19:58. > :20:03.more reports like yours and we may get somewhere. Do you have
:20:03. > :20:10.confidence the government can do something with this? Yes. These
:20:10. > :20:17.things are all working with existing levers and I am very optimistic.
:20:17. > :20:23.Thank you very much. Tomorrow's front pages. The Tom Watson