Desperate times call for desperate measures.
And when you have a city council that is so clearly anti-business it’s no wonder those who earn their livelihoods from Aberdeen city centre have decided to take matters into their own hands.
They have been abysmally let down by the local authority.
For months now local shopkeepers, restaurant owners and business chiefs have been calling for the SNP-Lib Dem administration to listen to their pleas and get rid of traffic restrictions blocking footfall from the centre.
But, as is characteristically true to form with Aberdeen City Council, those pleas have fallen on deaf ears. It does make me wonder, who do these so-called politicians think they actually work for?
Evidence taken from those traders impacted by the introduction of bus gates in the city centre has shown significant decline in their takings.
A lofty campaign was launched by The Press and Journal, and supported widely by the business sector in Aberdeen, calling for a compromise. The Common Sense Compromise as we called it.
Aberdeen businesses desperately trying to mitigate disastrous situation they’ve been left in
But unsurprisingly these elected officials took no notice of the people who voted them in and yet again allowed the powerful positions they’re in to go to their heads.
Meanwhile, traders are doing all they can to mitigate the disastrous situation they’ve been left in by introducing Shop Aberdeen.
The concept follows that first introduced by Aberdeen Restaurant Week whereby for a set period consumers are to be offered an array of bargains and bonuses in an attempt to get shoppers through the door.
It’s a great idea in so far as if people can be tempted in for some pre-Christmas splurging, it might help remind those who are less often in the city centre what we still have on our doorstep.
And it is heartening to see the businesses are not taking the council’s latest nail in the coffin lying down.
But ultimately after a year of difficult trading conditions what it’s doing is asking these local businesses who are participating to take an even further hit to their profit margins. It is just so sad they are having to do this.
On a daily basis here at the Press and Journal, we hear of people hankering back to the old days when Union Street and the surrounds were a bustling hive of activity.
We know now, we will never again have what we once did.
For the last four years or so, umpteen voices have made themselves heard over what they believed would be the best thing for the growth of our local city centre economy during uncertain times for the high street across the UK.
Less than two dozen people have the power to change the lives of so many
Real, professional people, have painstakingly described the benefits of the likes of pedestrainising Union Street and highlighted the dangers of introducing bus gates.
But despite the outpouring of expert views the future of Aberdeen is in the hands of less than two dozen people who feel to me completely clueless as to what’s most beneficial.
If our elected officials keep going the way they’re going we may as well declare our city centre a no-go area.
There has been talk of launching a legal challenge to the latest bus gates decision, one I would completely support.
But this is a fight no one should have to take on while just trying to make ends meet – and also attempting to serve their local community as best they can.
We know from readers’ reactions to our stories that people can be thrawn. Once their mind is made up on something it’s not for the changing.
But I hope those who have turned to Amazon now they find their own city inaccessible, will give Shop Aberdeen a go.
Any council should have the backs of their local businesses and sadly it’s clear that in Aberdeen it is not the case.
So now I am asking you to step up where our elected officials are not. Support your local businesses, visit your city centre and when the next local elections come around ask yourself what did your local councillor do to protect the future of Aberdeen.
You can find a full list of participating shops here.
Rebecca Buchan is deputy head of news and sport for The Press and Journal and Evening Express.
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