Scotland's Towns Partnership Conference

November 2025

On 27 November our Master Planning and Regeneration Team attended the Scotland's Town Partnership Conference to discuss, learn, and connect with professionals across the industry.

The conference theme was “Investment and Innovation: Delivering for Scotland’s Economy". It explored how towns and cities can build resilient, inclusive, and liveable places that power Scotland’s economy for the next generation.

The conference featured:

• Exhibition and BIDs Pavilion showcasing solutions and opportunities for towns and city centres.
• The launch and live demonstration of the next Understanding Scottish Places (USP.scot), Scotland’s pioneering place-based data tool.
• Walking tours of Glasgow to see culture, heritage, and regeneration in action
• Panel discussions and workshops on reimagining regeneration, creative collaboration, resilient neighbourhoods, sustainable finance models, and future-proofing places.
• Plenaries and international perspectives on placemaking, real investment in practice, and delivering for future generation

Feedback

“We had a fantastic day at the #STP25 conference representing East Ayrshire Council. As we begin our Master Plan journey for Kilmarnock, it was the perfect timing to meet industry professionals leading the way in Town Centre Regeneration.

Key take aways:

• partnership working is essential
• grit, determination and humility
• the vision is essential
• change “risk adverse” culture
• national structural changes
• towns moving from Recovery to “Recovered”
• Importance of creative business and finance models
  speculate to accumulate
• what is the story to be told?
• Focus on USP (unique selling proposition)
• All stakeholders in the same direction

"Fantastic opening speech about Glasgow from Susan Aitken and inspirational closing presentation on Copenhagen's Urban regeneration strategy presented by Monica Magnussen. Great to see Local and Global representation at the event.”

Siobhan McGale

Senior Architect Master Planning Team