Paisley Town Centre Masterplan Vision

This Scottish Government pilot project is a radical and viable masterplan for Paisley 2030 demonstrating how high street decline can be reversed and how the town centre can once again become the focus for the whole community with wellbeing, inclusion and opportunity at its heart. 

It is an immersive visual representation of spatial change showing the priorities and sequences of key physical moves that have the greatest regenerative benefit. The process of engagement and the published vision has reversed perceptions and created a shared sense of purpose, optimism and an aligned goal.

Key factors:

Develop the Big Move:

We demonstrate how one major asset (a struggling shopping centre) can be repurposed and become the catalyst for rebalancing the town centre.

Introduce “Attractors”:

New uses (cinema, food hall, workplace, etc.) have been best positioned and work together to achieve the critical mass to revitalise the High Street. 

Create Civic Place:

The masterplan draws on the quality of the built environment to create new and enhance existing public spaces to improve experience and support an existing successful events programme. 

Accessibility, connectivity and legibility:

The proposals developed solutions for enhanced legibility for the various gateway approaches to the centre and a re-worked station, bus routes, parking, car clubs and connected cycle routes. Strategies to support all ability use of the centre were also developed.

Meanwhile/stalled spaces solutions:

Temporary locations were shown for a community cinema, artist’s studios and collaborative working in unused space within existing assets together with a phased approach to the larger development projects.

Outcomes 

The Vision is a clear statement of intent that demonstrates ambition to the whole community and investors alike and has already met with success within the first year. 

- The project has prompted the purchase of The Paisley Centre to deliver a major redevelopment along the lines of the Vision.

- The Community Trust’s proposals for a digital skills academy and multi-screen cinema (as shown in the vision) are now in receipt of preliminary funding. 

- Negotiations are underway with the NHS to ensure that a major Health Hub is located in line with the principles of the Vision – accessible, visible and energising the town centre.

- The lessons learned from this pilot study have been published as Scottish Government National Guidance “A Vision for High Street Regeneration”

- The project has been selected as a High Streets Task Force exemplar study