By Scott Wright

FAILING shopping centres should be seen as the “one big opportunity” to revitalise struggling town centres around Scotland.

That is the view of Alan Anthony, managing director of Threesixty Architecture and Scottish chairman of place-making consultant Revo, who is spearheading an ambitious masterplan to regenerate Paisley town centre.

The 10-year Paisley Vision project aims to transform a struggling retail centre into a mixed-use destination, with a new cinema and digital skills academy at Paisley Cross on the High Street at its heart.

Mr Anthony, who developed national guidance on high street generation for the Scottish Government, said finding a new use for a soon-to-be-vacant retail unit has been key to the project.

Initial funding was secured by the Paisley Community Trust, which will play a key role in delivering the vision with Renfrewshire Council and the private sector.

Mr Anthony said the “failing” Paisley centre and the soon-to-be-closed Marks & Spencer have been sold to an investor “who proposes to deliver a large-scale mixed-use development in line with the vision”.

He added: “This constitutes around 50 per cent of all the retail space in the town and it will be the catalyst for the whole centre regeneration. The purchaser cited the published vision as key in convincing him to invest and is fully engaged with the community and the local authority in delivering the project.”

Mr Anthony highlighted the importance of developing clear visions for regeneration projects as they “will galvanise the community, local authority and private sector around a tangible future of a vibrant high street where people live, work, learn, play and shop”.

He noted: “It helps resist a piecemeal approach, tells the community and the outside world you mean business, and it attracts investment.”

Noting that the “loss of retail dominance” allows the return of different activities that have been squeeze out of town centres, he said: “The trick is accommodating the uses when a standard high street is composed of multiple properties under different ownerships with often absentee or disinterested landlords.

“Much of our research and recommendations identify failing high street shopping centres as the one big opportunity to catalyse whole town centre regeneration. They are under one ownership, at their lowest value and are the right scale.”