Official Report search · Parliament Workbench

Chamber

Meeting of the Parliament 16 November 2011

16 Nov 2011 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Regeneration Strategy

McNeil, Duncan Lab Greenock and Inverclyde Watch on SPTV

I am also pleased to be able to take part in the debate and I welcome the minister’s comments about focusing on the hard-pressed communities that are less resilient to the recession and downturn that we face.

Like other members, I know all too well, given the profile of my constituency of Greenock and Inverclyde, that the regeneration game has faced challenges and had difficulties over the years.

With the decline of heavy industry in my community and subsequent mass unemployment, the results have become predictable and evident over time: depopulation, deprivation, poverty, poor health outcomes, and an increase in crime and in drug and alcohol dependency. However, the real result has been the dashing of expectation and ambition in communities, wasted talent and destroyed communities.

Adam Ingram mentioned some figures. Over the years, many quick fixes have been tried in an effort to replace the large number of jobs lost from the shipyards and the engine works. We have learned over time that we cannot simply reverse the decline by replacing industries with something that is not sustainable. We cannot put a Band-aid on a problem that has been caused by years of neglect and decline.

The sunrise industries were a classic example. Electronic manufacturing took up a lot of the slack in places such as Inverclyde and North Ayrshire. Employment in such manufacturing was plentiful but, of course, it was low paid, there was increased casualisation and the legacy, because we did not get the cycle right, is empty factories.

During that process, we created a new class of people who are known as the working poor—those who work for what is now the minimum wage and who cannot provide for their families without state aid. The quick fixes involved big announcements followed by even bigger disappointments. We had the failure of the enterprise zones and the failure of Government and the enterprise agencies to work together. Ambitious community plans were left to gather dust and we could not move on because of disputes about planning and who owned land.

At times during that period, the challenges that we faced in Inverclyde appeared to be almost insurmountable, and it seemed that we could not move on at all. However, at last, we moved on from the quick fixes. They were replaced with a longer-term model—the urban regeneration company, which has a tight focus on the community and is tasked to work across it. The URC model is long term and recognises that we need to invest not just in business, but in the community. Thanks to the URC Riverside Inverclyde, those advances have come to the Inverclyde area. The changes are there for everybody to see. There are new businesses and there has been wider investment in colleges, housing and new schools, which I believe is the result of the thinking and ambition in the URC.

Many members were in Inverclyde during the recent by-election and were confronted by the new Inverclyde and what has been achieved. It might have been a backhanded compliment, but many members took me aside in the Parliament to tell me about the changes that they had noticed, which were not what they had expected. A transformation has taken place.

I cannot argue with the overall thinking in the strategy and the cabinet secretary’s comments, although I suppose that the devil will be in the detail. The benefit of that type of thinking in the URC and of its can-do attitude reaches far beyond the obvious physical improvements in facilities and infrastructure. Riverside Inverclyde has become a catalyst for change in the area and an infectious model for action that has been picked up by other agencies in the Inverclyde community, resulting in changes in schools and housing.

With the necessary support, Riverside Inverclyde can offer much more, such as the development of the famous sugar sheds and the James Watt dock area. Recently, the popular television drama “Waterloo Road” relocated to Inverclyde. That can be part of how we promote the identity of Greenock and Inverclyde.

Members would not expect me to say anything else but, sadly, we are fearful that that progress is under threat because of the deep cuts to the URC. The cuts to Inverclyde’s regeneration funding have been serious and we are worried that they put a question mark over the continuation of the steady progress that has been made. How can we expect long-term results when a crucial 10-year project is to be abandoned halfway through? How can the URC make good on its commitment to those deprived communities when the Government cannot even make good on its commitment to the urban regeneration companies? How do we look forward and commit to a new strategy, which needs to be long term, when our experience is that commitments are not being seen through?

My challenge to the Scottish Government and the cabinet secretary is to make good on the commitment to regeneration and to back a wider manifesto for the regeneration of Inverclyde. Our ambitions have increased. I say clearly to the Scottish Government that it must keep its side of the bargain and allow Riverside Inverclyde to see through its long-term plans by making good on previous commitments and ending the uncertainty about future funding.

Search Hansard contributions

Meeting of the Parliament 16 November 2011

In the same item of business