The Town Centre First (and Last) Principle

Yes the policy wonks have excelled themselves and have come up with: “The Town Centre First Principle encourages the public sector to continue to invest in town centres and help communities thrive.” I am sure they would argue that they always have, even if occasionally funds have been misdirected.

So what is this really about? Is it really about “adopting an approach to decisions that considers the vibrancy of town centres as a starting point”? Or is it just a sop to the medieval guild of shopkeepers, who have failed to adapt to the modern world parading their flakey business models like cattle awaiting slaughter.  Government and local government are pretty poor at directing investment or picking winners, let alone able to stimulate regeneration where there are deeper or structural issues of deprivation. But they have shown themselves to be supine to the marauding demi gods of convenience shopping and the motor car.

I’m not even sure many politicians really care that much about what goes on in their own town centres, as so few of them are likely to live in them, preferring the dystopian rural idyll of the suburb. Town Centre living is common throughout Europe, but it is quite simply not our way of living, with an underclass of renters and owner occupiers who battle daily with the forces of darkness. It is fashionable however to craft platitudinous waffle about how important town centres are. It is fashionable too for local politicians to line up in high vis. jackets along with their officers (who conceal flak jackets and a thick skin) to say how hard they are working for your town. Round here you get the impression all they can do is try and stop the invasion of tree huggers on the one hand (a soft target if ever there was one) and arrest any signs of gentrification (having spent decades hard wiring poverty into the town they are terrified of social engineering, but that is what the policies do). Because business comes before people, you are more likely to hear them pronounce about yet a new initiative to prop up some half baked proposition (banners come to mind) than anything that genuinely improves the neighbourhood as a place to live and to play (e.g. trees or greenspace) and encourages the only inward investment that makes places good (people with disposable income).

OK so councillors find it hard to take decisions or use their balancing duties and judgement, and maybe a good few find it hard to string a coherent sentence together, let alone adhere to local planning policy or follow their officers’ advice. But COSLA and SG can go on about “open, measured and transparent decision making” all they like, when what councillors are mostly interested in is progressing their own political careers, by crowd pleasing waffle on the one hand or by exchanging favours and influence on the other. No brown envelopes are needed to make this sort of transaction work. Information is power and so is position.

But here is the gotcha. The principle accepts that town centre locations are not always suitable (too right they are not!), requesting only that “the rational (sic!) for locating elsewhere is evidenced and transparent.” So that really means we cannot possibly put 1000s of square metres of supermarket in your town, so it is going to be out of town. Duh? Oh and then it goes on to dilute it further: “the principle is not a duty and will not be prescriptive; but will instead take account of local needs and circumstances.” So basically if you can spin a story for long enough that your audience gets distracted by the latest twitter imbroglio, you can swing it whatever way you want.

So there it is. It is neither a duty nor is it prescriptive. Somehow SG are nevertheless giving consideration to how it would operate in practice, and are encouraging public bodies to sign-up to this principle! Well what about the other stakeholders, can they sign up? I can think of a few rogue landlords, whose DSS pay cheques would dry up if town centre fortunes actually turned upwards, as they might have to invest proper money.

Then we have the dubious measurement of what actually constitutes “the health of town centres”. For too long the metric has been shop vacancy rates, or the number of charity shops, or footfall (a measure of the unemployment or maternity rate?), or business confidence (ie shopkeeper happiness, but surely they are never are?).

So what would public bodies be signing up to? “Town centres are a key element of the economic, social and environmental fabric of Scotland’s towns; often at the core of community and economic life, offering spaces in which to live, meet and interact, do business, and access facilities and services. We must take collective responsibility to help town centres thrive sustainably, reinvent their function, and meet the needs of residents, businesses, and visitors for the 21st century.” Hang on, that doesn’t sound too bad, really, “community, places to live, sustainability, residents, and a need to reinvent their function” seem to me to be rather fitting – where do I sign up?

But here is the rub. If you want to live in a town centre you have to contend with stakeholders who have only passing interest in community (shopkeepers that barely recognise that locals spend more money than transient car drivers do), no empathy for the people that actually live there (businesses blame residents for using their bins and parking), and have no idea that sustainability is not a soap powder (and spending a ton e.g. on having unnecessary waste collected). As for reinventing their function, they are deeply opposed to anything that is likely to make their shop rents go up, envious that investment could be redirected to anyone more deserving. In fact there is some evidence that where businesses and residents bodies get together asset values do go up, but this benefits both. In case you get the idea that I think shopkeepers are a significant part of the problem, it is because I do. ¹

I’ve yet to see anything concrete – beyond folksy / cheery heart warming flannel, such as that peddled by SG in the video below. I have little confidence that this initiative, like the ones before it, is going to do anything more than fail. Notoriously, there are innumerable local initiatives that deliver no quantifiable benefits (I know so because no one has bothered to measure them), while CCTV cameras roll on empty, container grown plants atrophy, signs that point to nowhere, and paint peeling away – a metaphor for apathy and inertia and lack of significant private investment.

To conclude I ask you to digest the following wonkish words, to educate and to inspire us, and to reflect on whether town centres are anywhere on our politician’s radar:

The principle requests that:

Government, local authorities, the wider public sector, businesses and communities put the health of town centres at the heart of proportionate and best value decision making, seeking to deliver the best local outcomes regarding investment and de-investment decisions, alignment of policies, targeting of available resources to priority town centre sites, and encouraging vibrancy, equality and diversity.

We commit to:

A collaborative approach which understands and underpins the long term plan for each town centre.

Scottish Gov.