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Scott Begbie: Endless consultations won’t save Union Street – innovation and action will

The Grill's outdoor restaurant on Union Street, pictured in 2020 (Photo: Darrell Benns/DC Thomson)
The Grill's outdoor restaurant on Union Street, pictured in 2020 (Photo: Darrell Benns/DC Thomson)

Saving Union Street is simple; let’s have another pandemic.

Not a full-blown one where we all have to stay in our houses and watch Pointless and Bargain Hunt ad nauseam. Just a wee taster of lockdown, though – the bit where Union Street was pedestrianised and enterprising businesses opened up marquees and sit-ooteries on the roadway.

Because, despite the grimness of those times – and, thankfully, they are fading into distant memory – it achieved something that folk have talked about for years. It turned Union Street into a space for people.

No cars or buses between Bridge Street and Market Street, but plenty of places to sit and eat in a prototype of cafe culture, springing up not just on the Granite Mile, but on surrounding streets, too.

It was an enforced rethink of what our city centre could and should be and, at the time, gave high hopes of a different way of seeing the heart of Aberdeen.

We can’t afford to just sit and wait

As normality has returned, so too, sadly, has the old way of thinking. The outside eateries are away and the buses are back, along with the desperate cry of: “What do we do about Union Street?”

That plea has now become a clamour, as Aberdeen Inspired has, rightly, called an emergency summit on how to stop the decline of Union Street before it’s too late.

Union Street is no longer the bustling shopping destination it once was (Photo: James Wyllie/DC Thomson)

There are, of course, plans and visions churning away at the moment. The revamp of Union Street Gardens is gliding glacially towards completion – but the snazzy new eating pod and concourse across from His Majesty’s gives a taster of what a boost it could be for the city.

And, the public consultation on Union Street shows wider, tree-lined pavements and “people spaces” – although still fatally flawed by allowing buses instead of going the full badger of pedestrianisation.

Consultations and plans are all well and good, but we’ve had so many over the years and nothing has happened. We can’t afford to just sit and wait for inaction to arrive.

Union Street must become a people place

Union Street is shabby, half-empty, and the units that are occupied are pound shops, vape emporiums or slot machine halls. Meanwhile, at night it seems to be becoming more of a playground for our leerier denizens.

That’s not a good look for our city, and it’s something that needs fixed fast before the rot is too deep to stop.

Imagine if those empty shops on Union Street were taken up by quirky, local independent craftspeople, artists and traders

Which takes me back to my point about the cafe culture that we were quietly incubating by necessity during lockdown – a theme that needs to be explored.

Imagine if those empty shops on Union Street were taken up by quirky, local independent craftspeople, artists and traders. Or, if they were filled with people offering different and unique things to eat and drink, day and night.

Pedestrianisation during lockdown changed Union Street but has since been reversed (Photo: Kath Flannery/DC Thomson)

How would it be if they were able to spill out onto the street itself, not just in temporary and hastily erected marquees, but properly planned and constructed spaces to serve all year round?

Perhaps I’m being simplistic, but Union Street can only be saved if it becomes a people place. And that will only happen if you make it a place people want to go.

Aberdeen Inspired deserves credit for calling out the emergency we are facing. Now, let’s see everyone – from politicians to business leaders, planners to developers, the leisure industry to ordinary folk – roll up their sleeves and do something.

Consultations won’t save Union Street, but action will.


Scott Begbie is entertainment editor for The Press & Journal and Evening Express

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