TOWN CENTRE PLAN COULD GO FURTHER WITH FULL TAX POWERS
The Greens have welcomed today’s independent report on town centre regeneration, but stress that bolder transformation, including more tax powers in Scotland, will be needed to ensure the future of town centres.
Patrick Harvie, Green MSP for Glasgow said:
“Many of our smaller town centres are really struggling and need upgrading into places that people actively want to spend time in. That means developing and protecting high quality civic space, instead of letting purely commercial uses crowd it out. The proposals to make new homes from high street buildings are positive but I would have liked to see bolder proposals on cutting urban traffic and tackling the saturation of supermarket chains.
“There are good ideas in this report but we could do a lot more with full tax powers in Scotland, such as reducing VAT on building renovation or taxing land in a way that would bring big benefits to our communities”