Committee
Economy and Fair Work Committee 18 May 2022
18 May 2022 · S6 · Economy and Fair Work Committee
Item of business
Town Centres and Retail
Good morning and welcome to the 14th meeting in 2022 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. Our first item of business continues our evidence gathering in our town centres and retail inquiry. The broad theme for today is keeping town centres alive, focusing on driving change and creating resilience. I am pleased to welcome our first panel. Martin Avila is the chief executive of Community Enterprise Scotland, Dr Allison Orr is a senior lecturer in real estate at the University of Glasgow, and Pauline Smith is the chief executive of the Development Trusts Association Scotland. As always, it would be helpful if members and witnesses could keep their questions and answers as concise as possible. I will ask the first question. From the evidence that we have gathered so far and a number of visits that we have been on, we have seen that community involvement and commitment have been recognised as being important, along with—sometimes—leadership and the change that has taken place. However, there are also issues of capacity to be addressed, and not all communities start from the same place when it comes to their level of engagement. What more can be done to support less-empowered communities? I recognise that being engaged in that kind of work is part of the bread-and-butter role of the people on the panel. For example, local place plans are one of the key pillars in trying to drive change. How do we support all communities to be engaged in that?
In the same item of business
The Convener (Claire Baker)
Lab
Good morning and welcome to the 14th meeting in 2022 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. Our first item of business continues our evidence gathering in o...
Martin Avila (Community Enterprise in Scotland)
I thank the committee for giving me the chance to speak this morning. How we engage the less listened to communities is a wicked problem. Communities in whi...
The Convener
Lab
Martin Avila has referred to the evidence that we heard last week. I do not know whether Dr Orr has had a chance to look at last week’s evidence, which we to...
Dr Allison Orr (University of Glasgow)
I thank the committee for inviting me along. There is certainly an issue with regard to resourcing in planning departments. They are expected to take on more...
The Convener
Lab
I come to Pauline Smith. Would you say a bit about the development trust organisations, how your members engage with communities and how important they are w...
Pauline Smith (Development Trusts Association Scotland)
Our members are from rural and urban locations, so they differ quite drastically from one area to the next. You spoke about the less represented individuals...
The Convener
Lab
I will allow other members to explore some of those issues in more depth in a moment. The committee went to visit Midsteeple Quarter. The community ownership...
Pauline Smith
Yes—that would absolutely be helpful. Obviously, I am passionate about community ownership support. There should be a go-to support provider, but there are o...
The Convener
Lab
I bring in Maggie Chapman, to be followed by Fiona Hyslop.
Maggie Chapman (North East Scotland) (Green)
Green
Good morning. Thank you for joining us. Pauline Smith mentioned community wealth building. As you will be aware, the Scottish Government has committed to in...
Pauline Smith
We are meeting Ted Howard this afternoon: he is coming to us. He is the guru of community wealth building and is doing a tour at the moment. One pitfall wou...
Maggie Chapman
Green
Dr Orr, we are talking about creating liveable, vibrant and thriving town centres that support the communities that live in and around them. What are the opp...
Dr Orr
In some of the cities that I have studied, there has been a change in the number of residential units, but communities and public services have not kept pace...
Maggie Chapman
Green
Martin, what opportunities are there to drive community enterprise and engagement through legislation?
Martin Avila
If it is okay, I will speak first about the idea of pitfalls. There can be a suggestion of false equivalence between community-run enterprises and general bu...
Fiona Hyslop (Linlithgow) (SNP)
SNP
Good morning. We have heard that every town is unique and that any solution has to be unique to the town, and Pauline Smith noted that we need to have strong...
Pauline Smith
I think that the ball lands with us. We need to work with BIDs, development trusts and CEIS to support and pool our expertise in general. We ask communities ...
Fiona Hyslop
SNP
What about working with councils?
Pauline Smith
Our community ownership support service and our community shares departments have gone out to local authorities to engage in training—well, we might want to ...
Fiona Hyslop
SNP
Martin Avila said that more is needed in terms of community development, and we have heard calls for council-based activity, town champions and more planners...
Martin Avila
Both—everywhere.
Fiona Hyslop
SNP
I know, but you will have to—
Martin Avila
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 ...
Fiona Hyslop
SNP
I move to Allison Orr. When it comes to your concerns about rentier experience, we are, potentially, going to move to an economic model in which there is com...
Dr Orr
When it comes to enterprises, cultural change among landowners is important. We have started to see that cultural change, through the pandemic and even befor...
Martin Avila
May I come in on one point?
The Convener
Lab
If it is brief. We are trying to make progress.
Martin Avila
Yes. Sorry, convener. We have to end false equivalence. Some of the previous Scottish Government rental guarantee schemes were there for developers to be ab...
Fiona Hyslop
SNP
So do you recommend rental guarantees for social enterprises that provide housing in town centres?
Martin Avila
Yes. Community Land Scotland produced a great report called “Urban Dwelling: A Vision for Urban Community-led Housing in Scotland” that made recommendations ...