{"id":425594,"date":"2025-09-15T06:29:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T06:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/425594\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T06:29:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T06:29:19","slug":"ministers-urged-to-put-retailers-at-heart-of-economic-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/425594\/","title":{"rendered":"Ministers urged to put retailers at heart of economic policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GettyGetty Images<\/p>\n

The SRC want town centres, like Fort William, to be put at the heart of government policy<\/p>\n

A trade association has called for the next Scottish government to put town, city centres and retail destinations at the “heart of economic decision making”.<\/p>\n

The Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) has published a manifesto ahead of the 2026 Holyrood election calling for high streets to be made a priority.<\/p>\n

It includes proposals such as introducing a more competitive business rate than England and introducing a system to make refitting shops simpler.<\/p>\n

Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes said the government was working closely with businesses to drive economic growth and prosperity.<\/p>\n

The SRC report, Scotland’s Future High Streets, shares the challenges that towns and city centres are facing across the country and policy solutions drafted by the retail industry.<\/p>\n

It has also suggested investment in other areas it believes would boost the sector.<\/p>\n

This includes combating retail crime through increased funding for Police Scotland and introducing an elected Scottish police and crime commissioner to replace the current Scottish Police Authority.<\/p>\n

It also calls for infrastructure improvements to private and public transport to make town and city centres more accessible.<\/p>\n

David Lonsdale, director of the SRC, said the current parliamentary session had presented the Scottish retail industry with “a series of almost overwhelming challenges” including Covid and the Ukraine war.<\/p>\n

He added: “Retailers have had to adapt to this new economic norm.<\/p>\n

“That means fewer stores operating from fewer locations with decisions made even more on the return on investment.<\/p>\n

“There has been a complete shift with almost all retailers of scale now operating online.”<\/p>\n

SRC research found that in the year to July shopper footfall to retail destinations in Scotland fell by 0.9% on average.<\/p>\n

Visits to shopping centres also declined by 0.9%.<\/p>\n

The study also reported that government-imposed costs of operating retail stores in Scotland increased by nearly \u00a3200m this year, as a result of increases in business rates and employers’ national insurance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mr Lonsdale said: “The next Scottish government needs to put town and city centres and retail destinations at the heart of economic decision making.<\/p>\n

“That should include reducing the cost of business, making it easier to visit and to invest in the high street, and ensuring it’s safe for shoppers and consumers.”<\/p>\n

‘We need decisive action from the UK government’<\/p>\n

The deputy first minister said Scotland had the UK’s lowest tax rate for non domestic properties.<\/p>\n

Forbes also said \u00a3733m of relief was provided to retailers through initiatives such as the Small Business Bonus Scheme.<\/p>\n

Forbes added: “However, we are doing all of this without the full economic powers needed to fully address the issues facing Scotland’s economy.<\/p>\n

“We need decisive action from the UK government, including a reversal of its damaging decision to increase employers’ national insurance contributions which is severely hampering business confidence, investment, growth and costing jobs.”<\/p>\n

Scottish Conservative business and economy spokesman Murdo Fraser said: “We need an urgent change of focus to make businesses and growth the centrepiece of government policy.<\/p>\n

“Only that will provide the revenue essential to fund frontline public services and revitalise our town and city centres.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Images The SRC want town centres, like Fort William, to be put at the heart of government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[748,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-425594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-scotland","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115206905225913218","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}