New research has named Aberdeen as one of the worst-performing high streets in the UK for spending, and the only Scottish city in the bottom 10.
Economic think tank Centre for Cities revealed the city is the fourth worst in the UK, based on anonymised offline credit card spend data, earlier this month.
Its index, comparing the current situation to a baseline pre-lockdown level of 100, gives Aberdeen a score of 73 – above only Coventry, Oxford and Aldershot, and just below London.
Dundee and Glasgow both appear to have recovered closer to the pre-March 2020 level with scores of 93, while the data suggests Edinburgh is almost exactly where it was 18 months ago with a score of 98.
Hard times for high street
Research carried out by Aberdeen Journals two months ago showed there were 79 empty units in the city centre, 36 of which were on Union Street alone.
That story broke as John Lewis confirmed it would be closing its large department store on George Street, one of the city’s biggest retail draws, permanently.
Retail expert Professor Andrew Turnbull, from the Robert Gordon University’s business school, said at the time: “The footfall these major retailers need to justify their existence in the city and generate sufficient income just isn’t there.
“The actual sites are subject to problems with rent, wages and overheads. Online doesn’t help but they are also struggling with competition from out-of-town supermarkets for whom groceries represent a minority of turnover and profit.”
He added: “The likes of John Lewis have had declining earnings and footfall for several years, even before Covid, and then we had the pandemic, so it is a perfect storm.”
With a significant decline in the local economy, bosses have been all-hands-on-deck to come up with a variety of incentives to attract footfall into the city centre.
However, chief executive of Aberdeen Inspired Adrian Watson believes there also needs to be a fairer bussiness rates system in order to turn the odds in local businesses’ favour and draw more firms to the Granite City’s High Street.
He said: “It is well documented the challenges facing the High Street in not only Aberdeen but towns and cities across the country and beyond, with Covid only serving to magnify these.
“We continue to call for a fairer business rates system that has disadvantaged so many of our ‘bricks and mortar’ city centre businesses over the past few years.
“Moreover, in terms of balance, we need to see more progress in properly taxing the large-scale on-line enterprises as well as more local and national government incentives to attract business into our city centre.”
Glasgow worse for footfall
However, despite those concerns Aberdeen does not rank in the bottom 10 of Centre for Cities’ footfall index.
The only Scottish city to appear in that group is Glasgow, the sixth worst-performing city in the UK for footfall according to anonymised mobile phone data.
Commenting on the figures, Paul Swinney, the director of policy at Centre for Cities, told the Sunday Times: “Aberdeen has suffered a wider decline in the local economy for a number of years, which continues to hit spending.
“But Edinburgh is interesting because while it hasn’t recovered its pre-pandemic footfall, it has seen a bit of a tourist boost, which has offset the lack of workers in town.”
Last week, Aberdeen City Council tasked planners to come up with an updated blueprint to encourage people back into the city centre – including the possible pedestrianisation of Union Street.
The initial parts of the masterplan are due to emerge at the end of October, with councillors making a decision in early November.
Mr Watson added: “The city centre masterplan must be that catalyst for positive change to our streetscape in Aberdeen city centre and it is encouraging to see many thousands of residents getting involved in the consultation.
“None of this is easy but there has always been a strong case from building from the heart of the city out in terms of regeneration.
“Aberdeen Inspired has recently delivered Nuart Aberdeen 2021 international street art festival, which has already safely brought many back into our city centre in such a positive way and will look to support our businesses and encourage the public back in safely through events such as Aberdeen Restaurant Week.”