Whether it’s Dry January (day 26, a resentful glance at the calendar reveals) or its radicalised cousin Veganuary, we’re always looking for new ways to address the same old problems. The start of the year is traditionally the time to look again at perennial issues and see if we can come at them from a different angle.

One such persistent question – a staple of political and economic debate for decades – is how we arrest the decline of our high streets and, ultimately, safeguard their future. And it is precisely to take a fresh look at what needs to be done that Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee has launched an inquiry into the future of Scotland’s high streets.

When I appeared at the committee’s first evidence session last week, I was clear that I wasn’t going to give them some misty-eyed lament for the death of the high street. Their future does not have to be bleak. In fact, with the right choices, they can evolve into something far more resilient, diverse and locally rooted.

It’s those choices that are the critical bit.

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There is nothing, I told the committee, inherently sacred about the look and shape of........

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