WAY back in the day, there was a TV show called Vision On, which showcased young children’s drawings set to the background of a rather mesmeric vibraphone tune that you couldn’t get out of your head.

Presented by Pat Keysell and Tony Hart, it was originally designed for deaf children, but was hugely popular with every child, in those days where there were only three TV channels.

The show was brought back to mind this week by Patrick Harvie, who is pledging that artists should be allowed to occupy empty spaces on high streets in a bid to reinvigorate them.

Given the dire state of Scotland’s town centres, it is certainly worthy of consideration, but will it really help to breathe new life into them?

Sadly, almost certainly not.

Would people really flock to Argyle Street in Glasgow to watch a visual artist perform in the windows of the boarded up Debenhams department store?

Would sticking a Vision On-type gallery in the downstairs floor of the closed John Lewis store in Aberdeen spark a massive revival of George Street in the city?

The answer to both these questions is a resounding ‘no’ and neither would sticking a puppet show or children’s choir in the doorway of Jenners revive the venerable department store in Edinburgh.

Art galleries, exhibition spaces and live venues can play a crucial part in helping revive town centres, but are only part of the answer.

Art, of course, is purely subjective with one person’s monstrosity being another’s masterpiece. It is all in the eye of the beholder.

Sadly, decisions made around arts and culture are normally made by people within the sector who sometimes cannot see the mainstream from the abstract.

This leads to baffling decisions to spend cash on things such as Signal-on-Sea, described as a large scale environmental music installation by Dutch artists Jeroen Strijbos and Rob Van Rijswijk.

This will be placed on Irvine beach in July and will see 24 long-throw speakers installed, with female operatic voices and an “enchanting soundscape” played out across the sands.

Organisers say the aim of the event is to make “every visitor feel part of the wonder of nature”.

But it won’t really. Instead, it will likely be very loud and the speakers will probably get in the way of families enjoying the beach.

A beach is also one place you are guaranteed to feel part of the wonder of nature. It’s almost impossible not to when there are waves crashing onto the shore and the wind is whipping round your ears.

Town centres are in desperate need of reviving and all options should be considered as a way of getting people back into them, especially post-pandemic.

Culture can play a huge role in this but it should for the masses and not just art for art’s sake.