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Economy and Fair Work Committee 18 May 2022

18 May 2022 · S6 · Economy and Fair Work Committee

Item of business

Town Centres and Retail

Martin Avila Watch on SPTV

That is the challenge that colleagues around the table face. We have limited resources and we have to understand where to direct them. I know that this is a bit of a vague response but, realistically, the kind of leadership that we need and who we need to be in leadership depends on who is there at the time, because the individuals will step up and the organisations will step up. What could some of the components of that be? We need to see strong community land trusts and development trusts. We should aim to ensure that every town centre and every town in Scotland is served by a strong community development trust. I do not see any way of moving forward other than by engaging citizens directly in their economy within the civic structures that they have. However, we also need to see that partnership working alongside local authorities. We need to be quite bold there and move past the idea that it is either the state or local enterprise that directs what goes on. I would like to see more work in Scotland around the development of public-common partnerships, where special vehicles are set up between the relevant actors in any one locality in order to develop economic assets and take the town forward. We have to bring in actors such as the Federation of Small Businesses, because local traders care deeply about their towns and their communities. We need to see a blending of those, which will change on a town-to-town basis, because the economic model will be different for each town. There needs to be an ecological approach that takes into consideration the social, financial and natural capital assets of each community, and there must be a blended approach between local authorities, small private businesses and community-focused organisations, social enterprises and development trusts to take that forward. I know that I have kind of avoided the question that you asked but, when it comes to any support that might be put in, we have to take a step back, because we have to support community development trusts and social enterprises to have a stake in schemes that deliver real revenue and are not dependent on the coffers of the state, which is a limited pot. A recent study—forgive me; I cannot remember the name—said that £3.5 billion of value was delivered by onshore wind capacity in Scotland in the past two years and that, through community benefit clauses, £22 million was given to local communities. If we get to a stage at which community development trusts and special purpose vehicles that are public-common partnerships have, say, a 10 per cent stake in every wind farm, the sum that would come to communities would be £350 million. We have to be bold and ask how we create economic enterprise that has an element of common control in our communities, because, in that way, they will be able to develop efficient and effective businesses that will continue to fund them well past the limits of what the state could provide, certainly within one parliamentary term or under one Administration. 10:00

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Economy and Fair Work Committee 18 May 2022

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