A tool to measure how independent or dependent towns and cities are across Scotland has been launched.
The online tool uses seven levels to score a town’s inter-relationships in order to gauge how dependent they are on others. It also flags up issues that need to be addressed such as weaknesses in the local economy.
Understanding Scottish Places (USP) aims to help local authorities to plan economic development, reform public services, tackle town centre decline and explore social issues.
The tool contains 36,000 pieces of data and has been launched by the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES), Carnegie UK Trust, Scotland’s Towns Partnership and University of Stirling.
Neil McInroy, chief executive of CLES, said: ‘For too long we have been making some decisions about places without fully understanding how they relate to other places and the assets they have. Now in Scotland, we have a statistical start to what is a vital cog in the process of creating great and resilient places.
‘Moving forward, I would hope we could get something similar for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and beyond.’
