The Appeal by Messrs Henry Lax over St James Retail Park begins tomorrow. They are seeking to have the condition, that further development at St James Retail Park should only be for two large units, removed.

At the time this condition was imposed it was done to protect Dumbarton Town Centre from further degeneration and decay. The condition is more relevant now than ever but the appellants want seven smaller units built instead of two large ones.

It is the belief of those of us trading in the town centre that were such a development be allowed it would compete directly with the town centre and undermine, indeed kill off any future investment and regeneration of  the town centre and High Street.

West Dunbartonshire Council quite correctly rejected the application earlier this year.

We believe that the application breaches government planning policy SPP8

Details of the appeal are HERE and Business for Dumbarton’s submission to the enquiry is HERE

Most members who have been in touch reported that the parade on Saturday had had an adverse effect on business. Some reported a 50% reduction on normal trade as customers avoided the town. It really is a hard one to take in these severe economic times.

On the plus side, the police operation combined with general good conduct of those participating in the parade, as well as those supporting and protesting against it, meant that trouble was kept to a minimum. There have been no reports to us of any damage to property.

Unfortunately the West Dunbartonshire Council bid for Town Centre Regeneration was unsuccessful.

Hopefully the council can attract funding in the second tranche to be allocated later this year.

Business for Dumbarton members were today circulated with Police advice for tomorrow’s Orange parade which is scheduled to go through the town between 12:15 pm and 2:00pm.

We take no collective view on the rights and wrongs of holding such a parade. However we expressed our concerns to West Dunbartonshire Council and intimated that we thought the timing of 1:00pm on a Saturday for such an event on the busiest shopping day could have an adverse effect on business.

Following Thursday’s Sheriff Court decision which allowed the parade to go ahead and our subsequent discussions with Dumbarton Police, members are advised to close their doors for the duration of the parade.

We feel this is sound advice as the parade has attracted some controversy.  For the safety and security of customers and staff we would urge all members to follow police advice.

It is our sincere hope that the courts having permitted the parade,  it be allowed to pass peacefully and that the participants and their supporters act in a responsible manner.

Business for Dumbarton supports West Dunbartonshire Council’s bid for a share of the £62 million being made available for town centre redevelopment by the Scottish government.

The criterea for bids is very strict and is based on a very short time scale so whilst the items below would not have been our first choice for investment we recognise that the money has to be used for capital projects and has to be within the other guidelines.

There will be applications made for four town centres (Alexandria, Balloch, Clydebank and Dumbarton)

The items below are the ones which relate to Dumbarton.

1. Purchase of area of land owned by Carvill which covers proposed boatlift area for Lomond Canal

I will be meeting with Council Officials soon to discuss a bid for a share of the £62 million being provided by the Scottish Government.

I think that The Business for Dumbarton Action Plan should form the basis of the application.

I have a shop in Dumbarton. I have traded there for twenty four years, the last seventeen of which have been from the town’s High Street.

When I initially took a shop there there was 100% occupancy of shops.

There were butchers, fishmongers, fruit shops, gift shops, electrical stores, general stores etc.

In 1993 when I’d been in the High Street for a year, the council closed the street off to traffic for about six weeks in order to make repairs to a bridge.

I immediately lost 35% of my trade.

Thankfully at the completion of works things returned pretty much to normal.

Then West Dunbartonshire Council came up with the idea of pedestrianising the place.

I opposed this proposal with every fibre. Not only did I know that this measure would be a disaster for my business and of the other businesses there, I also knew it would be a disaster for the town.

However the cooncil in their wisdom were determined. Exhibitions were held in Dumbarton festooned with photos of Paisley which had just been pedestrianised. They clearly saw Paisley as best practice in the field. They only just stopped short of claiming that it was the eighth wonder of the world.

Here is a quote from a Scotland Office document from 1999

Ruining Towns a Speciality

“A £3.7 million Paisley Town Centre Regeneration Project was today given the seal of approval by First Minister Donald Dewar and Scottish Secretary John Reid. To mark the successful completion of Phase 2 of the pedestrianisation scheme Mr Dewar and Mr Reid jointly laid a commemorative plaque in Gilmour Street.

Speaking during the visit Mr Dewar said:

“I am delighted to be in Paisley today to celebrate the successful completion of Paisley’s £3.7 million pedestrianisation scheme. The renewal of County Square and Gilmour Street has transformed the heart of the town. Paisley should rightly be proud of the efforts to make its centre more accessible, improve the environment and stimulate new development.

“Partnership projects can make a real difference. The commitment and dedication of the key sponsors involved in the Paisley Regeneration Project have helped the town become a revitalised place in which to live, work, visit and invest. The Government will continue to do everything it can to assist.”

Full article
HERE

I contacted the Traders in Paisley. It is fair to say that their version of events was somewhat different to Messrs. Dewar and Reid.

Their representative John Murphy who owned a stationers in Paisley which had been there for a century told me that the changes in Paisley were akin to a bomb being dropped on the place.

The Paisley traders were already campaigning for the pedestrianisation works and traffic limitations to be reversed.

I relayed this information to West Dunbartonshire Council. I relayed the result of my consultations with retailers in Dunoon, Airdrie, Bathgate, Kirkcaldy, Fort William, Dumfries and other places, many in England where pedestrianisation/traffic management had killed small to medium sized towns.

Towns like Dumbarton.

The Council wouldn’t listen.

The Council Officials wouldn’t listen.

The Town Centre Manager wouldn’t listen.

The Trader’s representative wouldn’t listen.

It looked like the town was finished.

The town was finished.

In 2005 the traffic management scheme in Dumbarton was implemented. This according to the council was the jewel in the crown of an action plan published in 2000 that promised to “regenerate and revitalise the town within five years”.

Here is my sardonic presentation of what actually happened.

In 2007 Paisley lifted the traffic ban in two streets.

Dumbarton’s Traffic Management scheme fell soon afterwards.

However we are left with narrow streets and unfeasibly wide pavements.

Most of the shops have closed.

Meanwhile in Paisley (taken from This BBC news article yesterday )

The leader of Renfrewshire Council, Councillor Derek Mackay, said: “When pedestrianisation was delivered in the town a lot of people felt it went too far and was over restrictive.

“We want to bring people back into the heart of the town.

“By giving better access we can help showcase what Paisley has to offer and generate more activity and life in the town centre, particularly at night.”

The council insisted the move would not be an expensive one.

Mr Mackay added: “The current lay out of the High Street is very attractive and amenable to car access which would mean, with a fairly limited budget, we could bring cars back in on a shared basis with pedestrians.”

Roughly translated this reads.

“We are reversing the disastrous pedestrianisation scheme that nobody wanted”

“If we had listened to the traders and townspeople in the nineties instead of shelling out money to consultants, we might have saved millions of pounds and still had a town centre”

John Murphy’s shop, like many others didn’t survive.

Dumbarton has the highest rate of unoccupied shops in Scotland.

Footnote: I should point out that my criticism of West Dunbartonshire and Renfrewshire Councils relate to the administrations at the time the traffic decisions were taken. The current administration in West Dunbartonshire has supported us in two crucial decisions in recent months and we appreciate that support.

And for the wrong reasons.

Last week the Sun carried an article on a report by consultants Experian on Scotland’s Ghost Towns. Dumbarton was listed along with Ardrossan as having the highest percentage of empty shops in its town centre.

Of the ‘top’ five towns Paisley and Airdrie, both fellow victims of failed traffic management initiatives were featured, as was Cumbernauld (which has a built-in failed traffic management scheme).

I wonder how much money has been wasted on consultant’s reports in these towns over the years? In Dumbarton “Re-discovering Dumbarton” the Action Plan which arose from a report by consultants EDAW has served only to exacerbate the problems and challenges faced by all traditional town centres.

It is glaringly obvious where Dumbarton town centre’s problems lie. Amongst the most relevant are:

1) Demographic Profile.
2) Lack of adequate convenient parking and legacy of failed traffic scheme (what ARE those acres of pavement for?)
3) Inadequate security, safety & street lighting.
4) Hopelessly inadequate public toilets.
5) Crumbling infrastructure.
6) Rent and rates which are too high.

If a team of consultants were appointed to look at it however we’d all be blinded and baffled by terms like retail offer, footfall, signage, public realm, pedestrian/vehicle conflict etc. etc. It’s all nonsense and our town centre stands as proof of that.

The “retail offer” is poor because the conditions for it are poor.

You don’t get a good crop from bad soil.

Create the conditions for business to flourish and it surely will. This requires action by government national and local and by landlords too.

Business for Dumbarton will meet on 21st April at 6pm Aunties Tea Room next to the Co-op. All members welcome.

From today’s Sunday Mail. Airdrie’s problems (and the reasons for them) and Dumbarton’s are eerily similar.

Feb 8 2009 By Mark Aitken Political Editor

EXPERTS yesterday warned a £60million facelift is not enough to save Scotland’s embattled town centres.

They branded the Scottish Government blueprint “High Street Botox” – offering only short-lived cosmetic improvements.

Faced with competition from supermarkets and out-of-town malls, as well as high business rates, local shops have gone bust.

Pedestrianisation, high parking charges and disastrous traffic management systems have also taken their toll on high streets.

Measures include better parking and improved shop fronts.

We took urban planner Willie Miller to Airdrie where – like scores of others across the country – once-thriving shopping streets are under siege.

He said: “I don’t think this is the time for High Street Botox – where three months on, everything looks terrible again.

“There needs to be much less top-down action and more community-based initiatives to produce long lasting stability.

“We need a fundamental look at the whole function of the town centre, accepting that it is likely to contract rather than expand.

“That should emerge working with local residents and businesses rather than imposing new ideas that are not rooted in the town. It might involve less shopping, more residential or better access for cars, removing pedestrianisation, or reworking parking restrictions.

“But it has to come from the community.”

Airdrie town centre once had a department store, a twice-weekly market and a football ground at the heart of the community.

Now many Victorian buildings in the main streets lie empty, the market is gone and businesses say they are dying on their feet.

Airdrieonians have gone, reborn as Airdrie United but in a new stadium on the outskirts of the town.

Family-run department store Orrs of Airdrie shut in December 2007, months before it was due to celebrate 150 years on the high street. It spanned six generations and – along with demolished football ground Broomfield Park – was the centre of the community.

Miller says initiatives intended to improve the town in the ’60s and ’70s were the start of the rot.

Part of Airdrie’s main street was pedestrianised to make it more shopper-friendly but businesses claimit has discouraged motorists from stopping in the town.

Miller said: “They were talking about parking, a relief road, pedestrianisation schemes as well as clearance of old properties to create new development opportunities.

“All these initiatives represented ‘best practice’ in planning at the time and were copybook proposals from government advice notes.

“They no doubt contributed to the current crisis.

“Various schemes have been proposed over the years but almost all have failed. Ironically, some of these include the sort of measures the government are proposing now to try to reverse decline.

“The critical thing for Airdrie is that its centre has moved progressively east from the original core area since the 1970s in attempts to improve the shopping on offer.

“Now the old centre has no real anchor point and seems to be in freefall with older traditional stores and cafes closing.

“The lesson is that planners mess around with traditional towns at their peril.”

Keith Kintrea, senior lecturer in urban studies at Glasgow University, suggested specialist shops could help revive towns like Airdrie.

He said: “Traditional high streets are in decline, with the problem exacerbated by well-publicised shop closures. Town centres developed around the idea of housewives who would go shopping on a daily basis. That just doesn’t happen any more.

“It is a very significant challenge to revitalise such places unless they can find some specialist niche.

“Investment into improving rundown properties and gap sites does make town centres more attractive and attracts shops and shoppers.

“But whether that is enough to fundamentally change their dynamics is another question.”

Airdrie and Shotts MSP Karen Whitefield said: “North Lanarkshire Council have done much to improve the physical appearance of the town centre. However, it is clear much more needs to be done.

“It would be worth considering employing a town centre champion, whose role would be to help bring in businesses and events.”

Pat Kelly, the council’s head of planning and development, said: “The council has invested millions of pounds in our town centres, improving roads and paths, landscaping and street furniture.

“A further £30million is committed.”

AIRDRIE’S SOS… SAVE OUR SHOPS

ANNE LAVITT, 46

Walmsley’s furniture store boss

THERE is nothing worse than To Let or For Sale signs on every corner. It is heartbreaking to see the town get further down each week. We must reduce rates to bring in more shops and tempt shoppers back.

THOMAS MCGLYNN, 46

Manager of butchers Hugh Black & Sons

THIRTY years ago, Airdrie had everything you needed. Now it’s mainly takeaways and charity shops. There is no buzz anymore. People get on the M8 and drive to a retail park.

LOUISE ALEXANDER, 47

Owner of Workshop hair salon (and sister of Elaine C Smith)

THE town was bustling when we opened 16 years ago but there is very little to entice people now. We need more free parking spaces and lower rents to attract good shops.

MARTIN HARRIS, 57

Owner of clothes shop Mister H

AIRDRIE was a thriving market town when we opened 30 years ago but it is losing out to the out-of-town centres. Regeneration will make it more attractive but I don’t know if it is enough to bring people back.

KEVIN FOTHERINGHAM, 40

Owner of Fresh Fruit & Veg

THE rates are too high. I pay £8500 a year yet the council does not even take bins away. Some retail parks offer rate-free rent. We need to a big firms, such as Mark & Spencer and Argos, to move into the town.