The SNP’s plans for regenerating town centres have been criticised by Nanette Milne MSP as being totally insufficient in the battle to revive high streets in the North East. The Town Centre Action plan published by the Scottish Government promises to ‘breathe new life’ into neglected centres across Scotland.
However, most of the policies mentioned have been dismissed as re-announcements and the amount of money involved is far too small to undo the negative steps introduced by the Scottish Government in recent years.
The Federation of Small Businesses has also criticised the report as many of the ‘re-announcements’ will not be implemented for some time.
Nanette Milne, Scottish Conservative MSP for the North East said:
“The last few years have been very tough for some of the town centres in the North East, with many of them seeing a drop in footfall and several shops closing down. We need to be doing all we can to rejuvenate them and that is why I was so supportive of the town centre regeneration fund which the SNP chose to abolish.
“The measures announced by the SNP in this action plan are nothing but a re-hash of previous announcements. There is nothing new in this report and with little money being put up it is doubtful if it will provide any meaningful help to our high streets.
“The SNP have done huge amounts of damage to our town centres recently with court closures and the proposed police counter closures. We need to see serious investment if we are to counteract these harmful measures, but instead we are getting old ideas that will not be implemented any time in the near future.
“What we really need is a town centre regeneration fund that has real bite so it can help turn our high streets into attractive centres for both shoppers and businesses.”