Christina McKelvie MSP and Angela Crawley MP spoke to students at Glasgow University on Friday 1st February on the work being carried out as part of the Regeneration of Hamilton Town Centre through “A Strategy for Hamilton Town Centre” plan.
The plan was announced by the Council on March last year and passed by committee in November 2018. This followed on from a consultation carried out jointly by Christina and Angela in 2016 which received more than 1800 responses from residents and business owners in Hamilton and found a real desire for regenerating Hamilton’s historic town centre.
This comes as the Scottish Government have pledged to introduce a £50 million Town Centre Fund nationwide which will aim to push local economic growth through funding projects like re-purposing buildings for retail, business and community enterprise and improving access and infrastructure.
Commenting Christina said:
“I was delighted to speak to the class at University of Glasgow on some of the progress we’ve made towards revitalising Hamilton Town Centre.
“With an experimental Traffic Regulation Order proposed to open up the road on Quarry Street, changes being made to parking and a renewed focus on bringing derelict buildings and land back into use we are starting to see real actions being taken which will help drive more people towards the centre of our town.
“At a time when High Streets everywhere are struggling to deal with the challenges presented by changing patterns of shoppers, who are increasingly ordering online, we need to do all we can to make it easier for people to get in to our high streets. The work of the partners shows that there are options.
“It was great to hear about the Town Centre Fund announced as part of this year’s budget and I am sure that it will prove useful in helping towards the work that lies ahead for Hamilton Town Centre.”
Following on, Angela said:
“It was great to return to the Glasgow University and talk with students about the Hamilton Town Centre Strategy.
“Since the launch of the action plan in 2016, we have made a number of important steps forward with projects underway to review parking management and town centre accessibility.
“However, we know that there is still a lot of work to do to and we are more determined than ever to make this project a success.”