Re-imagining North Lanarkshire: council vision to save its town centres

Like a message from another age, it declares: “Your privately owned department store for more than a century.”

Orrs shut in 2007. The shop, all four floors, has lain derelict ever since. It had been in business for more than 145 years.

This was one of a caravan of closures. Also gone from Scotland’s high streets are Hourstons of Ayr, Watt Brothers, Forsyths and Goldbergs of Glasgow, Esslemont & Macintosh of Aberdeen, Draffens of Dundee, and Robert Thomson’s and Jenners of Edinburgh.

Outside Orrs, Des Murray says none of them is coming back. The old retail trade, he reckons, is over.

Murray is chief executive of North Lanarkshire Council. His job is to find an alternative to mass shopping for town centres. And he thinks he has one. He knows he has for Orrs. His local authority has bought the building and is going to turn it into 20 flats.

“This is where every kid in Airdrie came to be fitted for their blazer,” Murray says, waving at Orrs and stressing he was one of the youngsters concerned. “At least if they couldn’t fit in to one handed down from their big brother.”

Now 48, Murray is far from downbeat about his hometown. He believes he can get people back into the centre. But to live, to work and study, not just to shop.

And that means clearing away traditional retail outlets on old Victorian drags like the one he is on now, South Bridge Street, for homes and what he calls “town hubs” – complexes which will incorporate multi-school campuses and other public services.

This week his political boss, Jim Logue, will ask the entire council to support a new vision for eight town centres, including Airdrie, each of which will be new “hubs”. These new developments – including inevitable mass demolitions – will be paid for out of a £3.5 billion decade-long capital investment programme.

The two men have to convince fellow councillors – and citizens – that they are right to turn off life support for small-town retail. They think they can. The first test is a vote of the local authority’s all-powerful policy and strategy committee on Thursday.

At stake is the future of former market town Airdrie, neighbouring Coatbridge, new town Cumbernauld, transport and industrial hub Motherwell, historic Kilsyth, sprawling Wishaw, strategically located Bellshill, and tiny Shotts.

Murray and Logue are discussing visions for each as they wander the streets of Airdrie with The Herald on Sunday. But none of the eight towns will be a priority: regeneration of all, they say, will be simultaneous. As long as the plan gets the backing of councillors.

The pair are reminiscing in South Bridge Street, bemoaning its current condition and talking about their vision for the town – and others.

They talk about Airdrie fairs of past, the throngs pouring down this street. Now the same stretch of Victorian shops is almost deserted – just occasional vape shops and nail bars. “That is not going to sustain jobs for young people,” Logue says. “The high street, in many ways, has to go. It is as brutal as that. It has to to evolve at a rapid pace.”

Murray responds: “This is not the high street I grew up on. That was vibrant and full of people and shops. It has changed beyond all recognition.

“So what do we do? Do we step away from it and let it lowly decline. Or do we step in to that space and do something fundamental to change its future?”

Murray points up South Bridge Street to a tall building that was once a branch of a Glasgow department store. “Your old Goldbergs. It has been a gym. It has been a furniture store. It has been clothes stores. None of them has been sustainable.

“Look at all the ‘To Let’ signs.” Murray reckons the vacancy rate in this neighbourhood is pushing 40%. Even in the better preserved parts of town it is 25%.

For years, for many of the years during which Logue has been a councillor, the philosophy was to try to spruce up streets like this, to breathe new life into them, to compete first with Glasgow – a quick train ride away – then out-of-town malls, and lastly the convenience of online shopping.

None of this – mostly improvements to urban realm – worked. Logue says it is time to change tack.

“Over the years, we have invested in the town centres,” he explains. “As we stand here and look at it, where is the return from that investment?

“It is not easy to see. We have to reimagine towns.

“I don’t think in their present form they can be saved. You can’t bring back the old retail. That has gone. We have to think of a different approach to town centres and what is envisaged in the hubs is far more sustainable. We have to have a core medium to long-term plan. In the past we have not had that plan.

“I think it’s bold and ambitious. Do you want us to continue doing what we are doing? Because if we do, it is tantamount to managing decline. You can see that in all the town centres in North Lanarkshire.”

Logue is not shying away from his own mistakes. He used to run education in North Lanarkshire and oversaw the construction of some new schools that parents and children like.

But are they in the right place? Not really, he admits. They could have put these institutions into town centres. But there was no overarching aim, he says, of the kind the council now envisages.

“Nobody had an overview whatsoever,” Logue says. “You look for land. You don’t look for linkages between that land and other areas. You’ve got the land, therefore you build the school.”

The town hubs, Murray explains, are not just schools. In Airdrie, however, the hub will include his old secondary, St Margaret’s, and its feeder primaries. Schools in Cumbernauld, Kilsyth, Motherwell, Wishaw and Bellshill are all “in scope” for such developments.

Elsewhere in Europe, schools are often in downtown. Staff, pupils and parents benefit from better public transport and help give central neighbourhoods a buzz.

But the vision for hubs is much more than just schools. Murray and Logue will put other council services into old high street locations.

Murray explains: “Take the single mum who drops her child off at nursery. We don’t want her going home and living in isolation. We want her to feel supported, so she can go to a community cafe or employability service.”

Logue and Murray stress they are not suggesting one-size-fits-all redevelopment for their eight towns. They want to make sure their communities keep their character.

In Lanarkshire – where local authorities come and go – people tend to identify with their nearest town, not new council structures, which currently date from the 1990s.

And North Lanarkshire’s eight towns are all pretty distinctive. That means politicians like Logue and officials like Murray know they have to preserve identity, and key structures like Orrs, even if that costs.

“You may rely on the town centre, its fishmongers and bakers. That is the thing we want to hold on to. But many many of the shops are changing hands two or three times a year. They are just not sustainable.”

Still on South Bridge Street, whose largely Victorian low-rise buildings sweeps down a brae, he points at the kind of structures that he thinks will have to go.

Proposals for more town centre housing won’t work in or above these old shops.

He says: “They were built as shops with accommodation above. It is not feasible to refurb all of them. Many of them are going to have come down.

“The internals of them, the age of them, the construction model. It goes well beyond a lick of paint. The housing type would not suit the need.

“You can’t just put council housing in the flats above shops. It would be too expensive – and sometimes impossible – to get up to spec.”

Murray says there is a context to North Lanarkshire’s plans for the towns which includes what is happening in their economic hinterland: a gentle post-industrial recovery.

North Lanarkshire has seen wholesale redevelopment before. And not always by choice. The area contains just under half of the land available for development in the west of Scotland, a legacy of the swift de-industrialisation that began in the 1970s and culminated in the 1992 closure of Ravenscraig, then the largest hot steel strip mill in Western Europe.

Murray explains: “Forty-nine per cent of all the land available for development in western Scotland resides solely within North Lanarkshire. It’s post-industrial. If you look at it through

the right lens, that past baggage is an asset.”

The old Ravenscraig site on the edge of Motherwell is being redeveloped – albeit not as quickly as officials had hoped.

Halfway between Edinburgh and Glasgow, North Lanarkshire has obvious geographical advantages.

Businesses like the easy transport links – the M8 and M74 corridors give easy access east west, north and south – and access to available land.

People like those jobs, the cheaper homes and commuting opportunities to both Glasgow and Edinburgh. Three main railways cross the region, two between Scotland’s great cities, and the West Coast Main Line. Housebuilders are ready to provide homes for these new residents.

But people, housebuilders and businesses are not rushing into the old town centres. A complex matrix of private ownership and the high cost of building on small, urban plots makes that unattractive. This is where the council comes in. That is because it is the only body, private or public, with the wherewithal to assemble the kind of land needed for comprehensive regeneration.

The story of growth in North Lanarkshire also explains how the council can fix its towns.

It might not have revenue, but it has capital so it can borrow cheaply and be imaginative on investment just as it is having to retreat from everyday spending commitments.

Murray says: “This has crossed political lines. We may argue about the small things in North Lanarkshire but when it comes to the big ticket regeneration, to the economy, and towns, we have absolute unified alignment.”