Five months on from the fire that destroyed the Mackintosh building, a long road of recovery still lies ahead for the businesses on Sauchiehall Street. The scale of the impact was laid out starkly by business owners at the most recent Sauchiehall Street Task Force meeting. Many of the businesses have not yet reopened and for those that have turnover is sharply down on normal patterns.
Work on stabilising the Mackintosh building was extremely complex and necessarily drawn out. That means that only very recently has work begun on assessing the damage to the O2 ABC complex upon which many of the local businesses depended for attracting trade.
One of the more unfortunate features has been the fire’s occurrence right in the middle of the building contract for the transformation of the street into Glasgow’s first Avenue. That project will radically improve the street’s look and feel but involves redesign, ripping up and relaying virtually the entire surface. The building contractors’ flexibility in the aftermath of the fire was widely praised but combining the impact of that project with a major incident has been the perfect storm.
The businesses on the street are unsurprisingly dismayed that normal trade has not yet returned. Thankfully the Avenue project is ahead of schedule and should be very largely complete before the end of the year. But by then many of the businesses will have struggled on through seven months of pain and very sadly some will not survive.
There is appreciation for the Council officials who have been on the street offering advice and tackling the practical issues but frustration it has taken so long to clarify the timelines for dealing with damaged buildings. Businesses welcomed the Scottish Government’s financial support and are very keen to draw on the full fund offered to help the street recover. They are wondering why the UK Government has not yet followed through on the promises of support made immediately after the fire.
Full recovery for Sauchiehall Street is some way off but when the New Year arrives attention should turn to the vision for a reborn thoroughfare. Much has been written about the demise of the high street across the UK. Can we set a vision for all levels of government to work with business to turn our best known street into the strongest example of a twenty first century high street anywhere in the country?
Stuart Patrick is chief executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce.
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