December 2023 - Tackling rural depopulation www.wcpp.org.uk

There is policy frameworks draw on and seek to increasing consensus that to work well, support policy proposals and strategies at responses need to involve local local and regional levels, for example, the stakeholders and to build on a close repopulation zones initiative of the Convention understanding of the local dynamics of of the Highlands and Islands. [...] Two significant imbalance, in terms of both population- aspects of learning since the establishment of ageing and the geographies of population the EAG have related to: (i) the role of migration decline (Hopkins and Piras, 2020). [...] Argyll and Bute, for ageing, migration presents sometimes the example, set up a rural resettlement fund only means to rapidly increase the working between 2016 and 2018, to encourage people age population, to fill vacancies in key and businesses to relocate to the area. [...] This • Different approaches to spatial targeting; contrasts with approaches focused on a quest • The importance of coherence; for economic growth and competitive • The need to go beyond generalised incorporation into global markets which strategies and policy intentions; dominated policy thinking at the turn of the 21st • The need for clarity as policy goals shift; and Century. [...] She is also chair of the Scottish government’s independent expert advisory group on migration and population and Professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow, where she has conducted qualitative research into migrant experiences in rural and urban Scotland.