Glasgow's exit from lockdown needs 'coordinated' attack plan

Speaking at yesterday’s Scotland Policy Conference, Urban Movement co-founder Christopher Martin said the success of cities post-pandemic will depend on their allure as a gathering place. This requires programmes such as the Avenues Project, which started with the transformation of the western half of Sauchiehall Street into a “humanised” public space, and should be followed by further attention to lifestyle issues.

“If we create conditions that support business and innovation in cities, and support these kind of enjoyable activities, and support the music industry and draw people in by focusing on quality of life, we can sow the seeds for solving this [crisis],” Mr Martin said

Picking up on that theme, Des McNulty, vice chair of the Glasgow Commission for Economic Growth, called for a joined-up programme that maps out how all aspects of business will resume as lockdown restrictions ease.

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“We need a coordinated plan for re-opening the city centre, particularly focusing on the tourist and hospitality industries,” he said.

“On the points about music, people come to Glasgow and stay in Glasgow, they will eat in Glasgow because they are coming to a concert, and all these things are inter-connected so we need to have a coordinated view about how we open up the city centre.”

The focus of yesterday’s conference was on the priorities for delivering Glasgow’s £1.1 billion City Region Deal, the infrastructure and growth project aimed at expanding opportunities and reducing inequality. Among the morning’s other speakers was Stuart Patrick, chief executive of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, who gave an overview of various transportation initiatives to improve connectivity throughout the wider region.

He welcomed the announcement earlier this year that Glasgow’s Metro System is step closer to going ahead after Transport Scotland recommended taking the project forward. The high-capacity system will focus on areas currently poorly served by public transport, which Mr Patrick said will open up employment opportunities for people in those areas.

Des McNulty

The first leg of the Metro project would link Glasgow Airport to Paisley Gilmour Street, taking in along the way the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District in Renfrewshire.

Speaking after the conference, Mr Patrick said Glasgow’s City Centre Task Force, on which he also serves, will be putting together a re-opening plan like that called for by Mr McNulty. Much of this will hinge on the Scotland-wide strategy for exiting lockdown, more details of which are expected next week.

“I am hoping we will be able to say a whole lot more about that soon, hopefully after [the task force’s] next meeting on Friday,” he said.

Turning to the issue of long-term unemployment, Data Lab chief executive Gillian Docherty highlighted the “huge breadth” of opportunity for re-skilling in the technology sector, where there are 12,000 vacancies every year.

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“Literally we can’t train enough to fulfil all those opportunities, so I am a huge advocate of that sector as route map potentially to help those that have challenges and are long-term unemployed,” she said.

Mr McNulty said there needs to be “much more rigorous linkage” between where employment opportunities are and where training processes take place. Other areas of employment growth should also be examined.

“A lot of the new jobs that we are looking at might be in things like retrofitting existing buildings to make them more heat effective,” he said.

“They won’t all be graduate jobs. A lot of them are actually traditionally-skilled jobs, but with new applications of those kinds of skills, so we need to have a coordinate mechanism on that.”