22 . Glasgow Business November/December 2012


Conference tackles the priorities ahead for the city centre


LOOKING TO THE FUTURE T


he Chamber held an all-morning conference on 25 October at the City of Glasgow College,


as part of its business engagement work with the City Council on a new City Centre Action Plan. Te event atracted more than


100 delegates, who heard from a high-profile panel of speakers and a selection of workstream representatives from different sectors within the city’s business community. Te event was designed to


include views from outside the city, and we welcomed Professor Valentino Castellani, former Mayor of Turin and President of the Organising Commitee for the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics; Greg Clark, a city centre expert and senior fellow of the Urban Land Institute; plus Rod Holmes,


former chairman of the Mersey Partnership and the moving force behind the transformational Liverpool One shopping area project. Prior to these speakers –


following an opening address by Neil Amner, Head of Infrastructure Environment & Transport at sponsor DWF Biggart Baillie – Bailie Liz Cameron, Executive Member for Jobs and the Economy at Glasgow City Council, spoke of the tough times which Glasgow faced during the 1980s, and the challenge of the crash of 2008. She highlighted the significant


work carried out to tackle city centre issues by “principal drivers” such as the Glasgow Economic Commission, “a triple helix of city, academy and business” underpinning the new City Centre Strategy.


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scheme in the Buchanan Quarter was “one of the most important things to happen to the city”, and the preparations for the International Financial Services District 2, the further education corridor and the construction and planning for the 2014 Commonwealth Games and business engagement in the City Centre Strategy were also highly important. Professor Castellani said that


Glasgow shared a history of economic turmoil with its twin Turin, as that city also lost a once robust manufacturing industry. As Mayor, he had urged his city constantly to ‘raise the quality’ of its centre, investing substantially in its public realm. He said if he were to offer us


one piece of advice for 2014, it would be to find a use for the city


centre during the Commonwealth Games – as Turin did during the 2006 Winter Olympics. He spoke of Turin’s ‘Artists’


Lights’ festival, with top artists invited to design high-quality Christmas lights every festive season – atracting visitors from all over Europe. During the subsequent


Q&A session, he tackled the controversial subject of pedestrianisation, showing in his presentation a picture of one of Turin’s main squares, which had become a focal point for people to gather since cars were removed. Rod Holmes shared his


experience from his time spent as Chairman at the Mersey Partnership and Grosvenor’s Retail Projects Director. He said Liverpool One helped to turn the north-west port’s city centre around, raising it from the lowly position of 17th ranked retail city in the UK to fiſth. His speech was very much


around the development and utilisation of skills within the city centre, an essential component for future development. He said our cities should be economic engines for creativity, entrepreneurship, innovation, skills, knowledge, research, excellence and marketing. Tis process should be led by bodies within the cities themselves, rather than waiting for national atention, focusing on the resources and atributes which local policy makers and businesses know so well. Business Improvement


Districts in cities across the world was the focus of Greg Clark’s talk,


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