Meanwhile, in Scotland...
Town centres are left struggling as more Scots now work from home
‘The dearth of shopper footfall has affected stores of all sizes and has left many gap-toothed high streets. The shift to hybrid working makes it trickier for store vacancy rates to fully recover.’
‘Fresh action is needed to deliver vibrant and attractive town and city centres with compelling reasons for people to visit and spend money.
'Coherent policymaking, lower business rates, and an honest acceptance of the role of private transport in helping access our retail destinations would help.’
New figures from Scotland’s Census 2022 showed that 800,500 Scots said they worked from home, which is 31.6 per cent of all workers.
This has soared from 259,600 at the time of the last census in 2011.
As Scotland came out of lockdown restrictions, the Scottish Government told businesses that embedding home working habits which have been developed during lockdowns and cutting car use could have a real impact on reducing emissions.
Scottish Conservative business spokesman Murdo Fraser said: ‘It’s clear that some of the changes to working practices adopted during the pandemic are here to stay.
‘But it’s concerning that the SNP government seems to have given very little thought to the impact on our city centres, or the wider economy.
‘The SNP must urgently start thinking about how we achieve the growth Scotland desperately needs against this new background.’
A generation of Scots have switched to home working - leading to concerns about the future of the country's town centres.
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