Scottish Town Fights Depopulation by Welcoming Migrants Instead of Young People

The Scottish town of Greenock and its surrounding area (the Inverclyde region) are facing an acute demographic crisis, with local residents leaving en masse for nearby Glasgow and other major cities in search of work and a livelier lifestyle. Regional authorities have decided to reverse the trend by focusing on attracting immigrants, the BBC reports.

Just five years ago, spotting a Black resident in Greenock was a rarity. Today, hundreds of people from Africa and refugees from other countries have settled in the town. In May, the Anik African Store opened on the main street, selling yams, plantains, okra and catfish — and it's far from the only spot in town now offering African food.

The main cause is a shortage of jobs

A lack of employment opportunities has been the key driver of population decline. According to statistics, no other administrative area in Scotland has suffered a steeper population loss than Inverclyde: the region is now home to 78,000 people — 22,000 fewer than in 1981. Forecasts suggest the population will shrink by a further 16% over the next two decades.

More than six thousand jobs have vanished from the area in the past four years, as Amazon, mobile operator EE and other companies pulled out of town. This week the local shipyard announced it would cut roughly a quarter of its workforce, while fans of football club Greenock Morton set up a rescue fund to stave off the club's bankruptcy.

Christiana Omilana, owner of the Anik African Store, who arrived in Britain in 2021, says the Scots are "lovely and open" and that "immigrants will go where the jobs are." Most of Greenock's African residents work or study in nearby Glasgow and Paisley, drawn to the town itself by cheap housing; many arrived on skilled worker visas and are employed in healthcare and social care.

Scepticism among long-time residents

Not everyone shares the authorities' optimism. "It's a ghost town," says 29-year-old Tiffany, who returned to Greenock to raise her child after leaving for work elsewhere. "There's simply nothing here — no activities, no shops, no jobs." She admits she's again considering a move to Paisley.

Older residents gathered at the Lyle Community Café recall a time when the town was bustling with people and shops. "When the jobs go, the people go too," says one of them, Muriel. Jonathan Fleming, a pastor at a Church of Scotland congregation who has served in Greenock for five years, notes that funerals in his parish now far outnumber weddings and christenings, while Iranian refugees supported by the church are desperately searching for paid work without success.

Is the authorities' strategy paying off?

Since 2023, the number of people arriving in the region from abroad has tripled to around 750 a year. New arrivals include hundreds of African migrants as well as refugees from Ukraine, Afghanistan and elsewhere. As part of the resettlement plan, authorities are offering English-language courses and help finding work matched to people's qualifications, while schools receive support for "anti-racist," inclusive education.

Mo Almalarashid, who arrived in Greenock in 2018 as a Syrian refugee with no English, now works as an instructor at a local gym and says he has always found people willing to help him. But tensions do arise: last year a local teenager was sentenced to ten years in prison for plotting a mass killing at a local mosque, and in June a protest outside a hotel housing asylum seekers ended with one woman charged with a hate crime and three police officers injured.

Even so, in the Scottish parliamentary elections, Reform UK — which campaigns for sharp cuts to immigration — came only third in Inverclyde, trailing the winning Scottish National Party by nearly 8,500 votes. Stephen McCabe, leader of the local council since 2007, insists the resettlement plan is already bearing fruit: over the past two years the population has stabilised, largely thanks to immigration. He says restoring the population is the council's top priority, alongside housing projects, school modernisation and, above all, the creation of new jobs.

Source: seznamzpravy.cz