Glasgow: How to breathe life into our city centres

The audience is made up from the public policy community, politicians, the third sector and business leaders so it’s a fairly broad mix of those interested in the progress the city’s economy is making. In previous years the underdevelopment of the River Clyde has been a very popular topic but this year the top three questions covered the city’s critical shortage of student accommodation, the pressing need for investment in the regional public transport system and a desire for the city’s future to be based on a fresh economic model.

The final topic covered that day was the vexed question of the impact that home working is having on Glasgow’s city centre and it’s arguable that the audience’s top three question all have a bearing on where our city centre is going.

In May, both commercial property experts Ryden and consulting firm Stantec reported on their research for the Glasgow City Centre Taskforce. This examined the scale of the economic damage done by the pandemic, the impact on the various city centre property markets including retail, commercial offices and hotels and, finally, the policies which could help deliver the re-purposing that the centre would need to reflect the new post-pandemic economic model.

Encouraging the delivery of purpose-built student accommodation was one of the study recommendations. There has been considerable political opposition to student accommodation developments but all of the city’s higher education institutions are telling me that their long-term growth strategies are now under threat as they can no longer be sure that students taking up courses will be able to find somewhere to live. One of the quickest ways of repurposing empty city centre sites is to respond to that demand. It is worth remembering that Glasgow has one of the best student retention rates in the UK so at least half of those students are likely to be adding to our workforce once they have completed their studies.

Of course, if the UK Government goes ahead with impulsive ideas to clamp down on international student numbers then perhaps that demand will fade away. One has to hope that wiser policy heads will point out just how important our universities and colleges are to our economic future.

Improving the cost and quality of public transport was also in the study recommendations with the reliability of the transport network revealed as the biggest obstacle to citizens coming back into their city centre. Until we invest in better public transport we have to be very careful about policies chasing private vehicles out of our city centre.

Of course there are many more study recommendations to encourage the full range of residential demand and the changes in commercial office investment that are a reflection of home working.

City Council Leader Susan Aitken confirmed that a full review of the former Golden Z covering Sauchiehall, Argyle and Buchanan Streets was underway and would set out a vision explaining the distinctive role these streets would play in a reshaped city centre and the new policies in planning and transport that would help deliver that.

The evolving role of shopping is at the heart of the review with an expectation that city living, leisure, co-working space and national cultural facilities would all play a larger part. Planning policies in particular will have to change if this is going to happen quickly.

Councillor Aitken also announced that the council’s full response to the Ryden and Stantec recommendations would be developed by a task force with a full council action plan in place early next year. That urgency is very welcome.

Stuart Patrick is the chief executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce

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