How do we save our town centres?

By Giancarlo Rinaldi South of Scotland reporter, BBC Scotland news website

Rural town centres have been hit by a string of store closures

An unmistakeable distress signal has been sent out from countless locations across the south of Scotland over the past few years.

Help save our town centres.

In Stranraer, Dumfries, Jedburgh, Hawick and any number of other medium-sized towns the message appears to be exactly the same.

Once-thriving shopping locations have seen visitor numbers dwindle while locals chose to travel elsewhere to make their purchases.

It often ends up with a scene where you could be forgiven for thinking that every other shop was called To Let or Closing Down.

This week Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander was in Jedburgh to see the work being done there to try to tackle the situation.

The Jedburgh Alliance seem to me to have done a great job of thinking through what the future of Jedburgh High Street might be Wendy Alexander Labour leader

The Jedburgh Alliance was set up several years ago to attempt to improve the town's economic outlook.

By bringing together a range of interested groups it hopes to create one clear vision for the future.

Ms Alexander's party has suggested that town centre trusts could be the way forward for such rural towns.

"Parish councils have helped small towns in the north of England develop their high streets," she said.

"That is really what we want to see made possible in Scotland.

"The Jedburgh Alliance seem to me to have done a great job of thinking through what the future of Jedburgh High Street might be."

Retail vibrancy

Jedburgh is far from being the only town in this situation.

Dumfries has been struggling to retain its retail vibrancy for many years.

A lot of hopes had been pinned on a �60m development bringing a large department store into the town along with other associated shops.

It ended up a victim of the global "credit crunch".

Property developer Centros was forced to shelf its scheme which was seen as central to regenerating the town.

The Jedburgh Alliance has worked to boost the town's fortunes

Now the council is looking at other avenues to achieve the same end result.

Further west, in Stranraer, they are unsure about whether or not to take a true development gamble.

It is the only site in Scotland with UK government approval for a casino.

However, locals, including the Church of Scotland presbytery, have their reservations about becoming Galloway's mini-Las Vegas.

Whatever they may decide, there are some signs of hope on the horizon.

Hawick has shown that improvements can be made.

Its Heart of Hawick project recently won an award as the best enterprise scheme in the country.

One solution

It was praised as a culture-led facility which had brought wider economic benefits.

It would appear that this might be one solution to the problem.

What each town has to do is find a way of marking itself out as different from the rest.

They need to be able to offer something out of the ordinary to attract shoppers into town and remain appealing to locals.

The debate on how that should be achieved, however, is likely to continue for some time to come.

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