Speaking in a Westminster Hall debate, Gregor Poynton highlighted the decline in high streets across Scotland.
“Right across Scotland, our high streets and our main streets have seen better days. Yet the decline of these high streets, main streets and town centres are not inevitable.”
Mr Poynton highlighted the action being taken by members of the Livingston constituency in the West Calder and Harburn Development Community Trust, which is transforming their iconic central bakery in West Calder into the Scottish Cooperative Discovery and Activity Centre, creating jobs, investment, and training opportunities in the area.
He also highlighted the community vision for the high street, emphasising solidarity and cooperative roots amongst small business owners and traders, including the West Calder Traders. “Projects and business people like this demonstrate that with vision, energy and determination, the decline of our town centres and high streets is far from inevitable.”
The discussion highlighted the failure and inaction of the Scottish Government to rejuvenate Scottish town centres. “Scotland’s town centres are yet another casualty of the SNP’s mismanagement and chaotic government.”
Gregor Poynton called for creative solutions to the challenges facing Scottish high streets, including levelling the playing field for small businesses based in the high street verses online global retailers and prioritising superfast broadband in our highstreets to reflect the changing nature of work in our highstreets.
He also emphasised the importance of community in local high streets, calling for the relaxing of planning rules to allow the conversion of empty units into high quality housing and high street ownership data to be made public, to promote the opportunity for community ownership of empty units.
He concluded: “All of these ideas can perhaps contribute to making them a better place to live. None would constitute a revolution, but they would be revolutionary for millions of people living in our towns, because for too long, main streets and towns and villages such as Fauldhouse, Broxburn, West Calder, Uphall and others in my constituency have been neglected by an SNP Scottish Government.”