My hometown shows that high streets have to change or die
Aberdeen is launching an ambitious bid to revive its struggling centre. Could it offer lessons for other high streets?
The empty building that used to be the home of Marks & Spencer in Aberdeen is one of the first things you see when you arrive off the train and come into the city centre. The sign has gone, though the shape of the lettering can still be made out; the windows are blacked out and the doors boarded up.
This is my hometown. As a teenager, I spent hours on Union Street, its main thoroughfare, nicknamed the Granite Mile after the local silver-grey stone. It was the place to try on all the latest fashions from the likes of Clockhouse and Chelsea Girl.
"I come to Union Street to take a bus somewhere else... there's nothing to shop for now… it's horrendous," complains Marie Sim, a lifelong Aberdeen resident.
"We've realised the psychology is not to do it once but be prepared to do it two or three times before people that do these things eventually say, 'there's no point in putting it there because somebody's going to paint over it.'"