Drive to repopulate empty town centres

The council is keen to attract more people to live in town centres

Town centres are being targeted in efforts to fill empty homes across south west Scotland.

The issue of vacant properties - and how to bring them back into use - is being discussed at a major conference being staged in Dumfries.

Keynote speaker is Housing Minister Kevin Stewart with Dumfries and Galloway Council leader Elaine Murray opening proceedings.

She said getting people into town centres was a key goal.

"Obviously at times in the 20th Century people moved out from poor accommodation to the outskirts of town and retail moved in," she said.

"We are now seeing particularly large retail moving out and our town centres are becoming less vibrant, there's not many people around.

"One of the ways of counteracting that is to bring empty properties back into residential use."

'Bring to fruition'

Ms Murray said the local authority had put £1m towards those efforts for the second year in a row.

However, she said they would need to work with other groups - like the artist-led Stove network - to tackle the situation.

"The council can't do it all itself, it will have to work with other people," she said.

"Other people have vision and enthusiasm and ideas which together we can maybe bring them to fruition."