Inverclyde Council wants more migrants to settle in Greenock, and News Scotland says the plan is tied to the town’s decades-long population decline. The council’s repopulation strategy aims to keep people in the area and attract others, but the key test is whether work can be created fast enough to make that settlement stick.
Inverclyde’s population is 78,000, which is 22,000 fewer residents than it had in 1981. The council says the number could fall by a further 16% over the next two decades, and it has made tackling the lack of people its number one priority.
Greenock High Street in May
Anik African Store opened along Greenock’s High Street in May, selling yams, plantain, okra and catfish. Another African food shop is just metres away, and locals say it would have been rare to see a black person in Greenock five years ago.
Hundreds of Africans and refugees have moved to Greenock. Many of Greenock’s African population are working or studying in Glasgow or Paisley, and many have been drawn by cheap housing. Others have arrived on skilled work visas known as sponsorship.
Christianah Omilana and Sunday
Christianah Omilana, who owns Anik African Store, came to the UK in 2021. She said Scottish people “are lovely and accommodating” and added: “Immigrants will come when there is work.” Her view matches the council’s central problem: attracting new residents is easier than keeping them if local jobs remain scarce.
Sunday moved to Greenock from Devon, began a job at a hospital in Glasgow and moved to join his wife, who works at Inverclyde Royal. He said: “If the local council can provide [jobs], everything in Greenock will change, because people [from Africa] would like to come.”
Tiffany in Inverclyde
Tiffany, a 29-year-old mother of one, moved away from Greenock to work, returned to raise her child and now says she may leave again. At a local parent and toddler group, she said: “It’s a ghost town,” and added: “There’s just nothing in it. There’s nothing to do, there are no shops. There is no employment.”
That is the pressure point in Inverclyde’s plan: the council wants migrants to move in, but the story’s own evidence points to lack of work as the root problem. Until Greenock offers reasons to stay as well as reasons to arrive, repopulation looks like a question of jobs rather than housing alone.
