Businesses in Elgin town centre have reacted with anxiety about future footfall, worries about the future of jobs and anger at the situation following confirmation the St Giles Centre will close.
The shopping centre will shut permanently in less than two weeks on January 20 – making all businesses inside homeless with dozens of jobs at risk.
A cash crisis after Moray Council launched legal action to recover an unpaid business rates bill of between £600,000 and £750,000 pushed the owners to the wall.
Today traders in Elgin town centre have been sharing their thoughts on what the closure of the St Giles Centre will mean for the High Street and the future of the community, including:
- Support for businesses affected by the closure.
- The real-life consequences for staff whose jobs are now at risk.
- Anger that the St Giles Centre had been allowed to rack up such a large unpaid bill.
- And calls for shoppers to continue to shop local with Elgin town centre remaining open for business.
Worries about impact on Elgin High Street footfall
Kathleen Shanks has run The Little Lunchbox on Harrow Inn Close for eight years and has seen seismic changes in footfall in that time.
The caterer is worried the loss of jobs in the town centre will exacerbate the concerns.
She said: “As a business, I’m very concerned. I know that staff in the St Giles Centre come here for lunch, and I would hazard a guess they support other businesses round about too.
“Elgin town centre is a community, businesses help each other. It needs to be like that.
“It’s no good having plans for a cafe culture if there isn’t the footfall for it. We need to be encouraging shoppers and workers to be in the town centre.
“As a business, we use Argos regularly when things break. We also get supplies out of The Works and WH Smith. Losing these businesses would be a blow.”
Mrs Shanks also revealed she had received anxious phone calls from affected staff in the hours after the St Giles Centre closure was confirmed inquiring about job opportunities.
She added: “A lot of people say ‘shop independent’, but I think it’s important to support all businesses in the town centre, they all contribute by employing local.”
Calls for St Giles Centre businesses to stay in Elgin
Sarah Holmes has run Pencil Me In on Elgin’s Batchen Street since 2016 and believes there is still to be positive about in the town centre.
She has called on the businesses outside the St Giles Centre to band together to promote the High Street and wider area.
She said: “I feel so sad for the businesses and staff affected. As a business, we just have to keep doing what we’re doing because it’s not something we can control.
“It’s so sad for the people impacted though. I just hope there’s a way to keep as many of the businesses in Elgin as possible, because we’ll deeply miss them otherwise.
“I shop in Argos regularly myself. My staff shop at Smadug and we point a lot of our customers to The Works for supplies.
“It’s the last thing we need because there are already a lot of people quick to criticise the town centre by saying ‘There’s nothing on the High Street anyway.’
“It’s up to all of us now to keep promoting Elgin and showing all the things we have here.”
Anger at Moray Council for allowing unpaid bill to grow so large
Vic Flett is an Elgin town centre veteran having run South Street music shop Sound and Vision since 1980.
During that time he has seen the High Street pedestrianised, the dawn of online shopping and the rise of the retail parks – but is still as passionate supporter for town centre shopping.
He is angry the St Giles Centre was allowed to run up an unpaid bill of more than £600,000 before legal action was taken against the Elgin business.
He said: “It should have been dealt with far sooner than it has been. If I had decided to stop paying my business rates I can guarantee I would have been dragged through the courts far sooner to recover the money.
“It’s unforgivable it’s been allowed to get to the stage it has got.
“There’s 13 businesses in the St Giles Centre that we could potentially lose. Some of them are chains that might prefer being in shopping malls. The only positive is that there are a few units available that some could go into.
“The St Giles Centre has been a white elephant for a while. Since they pedestrianised the High Street and opened up the retail parks there has always been a threat of this happening.
“If you put town centre shops where parking is controlled with charges up against retail parks that have free parking then you don’t need a degree to work out the shops in the town centre are going to find it more difficult to trade.”
‘So much more to Elgin town centre than St Giles Centre’
Eryne Scott is a relative newcomer to Elgin town centre having only opened Enchanted Highlands in 2023 before moving to South Street last year.
In the hours following confirmation the St Giles Centre was closing she issued a rallying call on social media for shoppers to support local traders and business in Elgin.
She said: “My biggest fear is people saying stuff like ‘That’s the final nail on the head for Elgin High Street.’
“It’s absolutely heartbreaking what’s going on for the people at the St Giles Centre but there are still so many other businesses worth supporting.
“It’s a big worry for the town centre. What’s going to happen to the bus station? What about the public toilets? That’s already a problem in Elgin.
“It’s so devastating for the staff. I just hope as many businesses as possible can find a way to stay in Elgin, but I don’t think there’s the units available for them.”
Read more from the St Giles Centre
- A Highland property developer, a tobacco giant and a 125-year lease: Who owns the St Giles Centre in Elgin?
- Retail park rows, supermarket deals and a massive bus station makeover: The St Giles Centre expansion plans in Elgin that never happened
- No shops, more than two years late and a bankrupt developer: The saga of how the St Giles Centre in Elgin finally opened
- Locals cite ‘scared staff’ and ‘little to no investment’
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