Charlie in Scots town emptied the place (8)
I believe the answer is:
allocate
'place' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'charlie in scots town emptied the' is the wordplay.
'charlie' becomes 'c' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'scots town' becomes 'alloa' (Scottish town. I am not sure about the 'scots' bit.).
'emptied' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'the' with its middle removed is 'te'.
'c' going into 'alloa' is 'alloca'.
'alloca'+'te'='ALLOCATE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for allocate that I've seen before include "Deal" , "Distribute (eg, duties)" , "Distribute according to a plan" , "Earmark" , "Designate" .)