16 Apr 2025
By Stuart Patrick, Chief Executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce
After two years of heavy criticism, has the tide begun to turn on the battered fortunes of Glasgow City Centre?
Early footfall data from this year suggests that despite tough national economic conditions there may be a recovery underway. Visits to the three top retail streets is up 9% on last year with Argyle Street and Buchanan Street doing especially well. Sauchiehall Street remains a drag on figures but with the public realm works on Sauchiehall Precinct and Cambridge Street due to be substantially complete in the coming weeks, we can reasonably hope to see further improvements in the summer.
There is no shying away from the problems caused by the Sauchiehall Street Avenue works but lessons have been learned and changes made in time for the next stage in the Council’s Avenues investment programme. By far the most visible investment coming up next will be in George Square. Just take a walk across the square and you will see close up how much deterioration there has been and how important the refresh now is.
One of the most persistent issues affecting footfall has been the post Covid popularity of hybrid working. Could the return to the office also be picking up some more momentum? The Chamber’s own research tells us that we are never likely to see the end of hybrid working, although the JP Morgan decision to return to the office full-time has been very high profile. Larger companies have reported greater concern over the impact of hybrid working on productivity and there may be a steady, albeit slow, increase in office attendance yet to come.
I attended a fascinating event in Birmingham led by an academic team examining the relationship between remote and hybrid working and the work location choices being made by high skilled workers. What was most striking was the very direct relationship the official data shows between a worker’s skill level and the likelihood they will be working away from the office. The higher the skill levels in a region the more likely the prevalence of home working. That may help explain why Glasgow was amongst the UK cities most affected by home working as it also has an unusually highly skilled workforce.
If home working steadily reduces, we may begin to see more investment in city centre office space. The success of the Social Hub shows there is clear demand for the right product.
Recent decisions by the council are also a helpful contribution to the city centre’s recovery. One example is the announcement that a compulsory purchase order for the Egyptian Halls on Union Street could help tackle an important building in which the upper floors have lain derelict for well over a decade. Council officials are also exploring a new use for the Lighthouse building in Mitchell Lane, bringing in outside investors to reopen the facility as a collaborative working space for small sustainable energy businesses. These are clear signs that the City is taking a more proactive role.
The Chamber also welcomed this year’s council budget decisions to allocate more funding for cleansing and for road and pavement repairs. The extra money is for the whole of Glasgow – and our members constantly tell us how much this is needed - but the city centre will get its share. At the same time senior members of the city centre business community have begun the process for proposing a new city centre Business Improvement District which could mean more resources being made available to add to the work the council is already undertaking.
Other decisions will also be helpful. Here in these pages, Scott Wright recently noted business feedback saying that the Scottish Government is poised to ‘soften’ the impact of the Housing Bill on the pipeline of build to rent investments. The collapse of Glasgow’s Build to Rent housing investment also led to an almost exclusive developer focus on student accommodation which comes with its own challenges.
Releasing the pent-up demand for Build to Rent is especially important in Glasgow city centre where more than two million square feet of former office and retail space lies empty - much of which could be converted to homes.
This could be a great help in preserving largely vacant upper floors in the Victorian central business district surrounding Central Station although the costs involved in repurposing those buildings may need further financial help. The Chamber is supporting a joint call with the city council for the UK Government to take a fresh look at the Business Premises Renovation Allowance scheme that ran between 2007 and 2017 and for reductions to the VAT on the refurbishment of existing buildings.
There also some important decisions yet to come. We should soon know the extent of Landsec’s revised plans for the Buchanan Galleries as they focus on the faster than expected post pandemic recovery in high street retail spending. The proposals for the University of Strathclyde’s Charles Huang Advanced Technology Innovation Centre on John Street show the growing need for research intensive collaboration space and how successful the Glasgow City Innovation District is becoming.
And wider regional decisions will also have an influence. The change in ownership of Glasgow Airport operator AGS Holdings augurs well for growth in passenger numbers. More tourists travelling into Glasgow Airport would benefit city centre activity and potentially future investment in hotel space.
So, there is scope to attract more city centre investment in rental housing, collaborative office space, hotels and perhaps even retail space.
Not every aspect of city centre activity will be positive and improving of course. The traffic congestion around Cowcaddens Road is particularly bad right now and complaints are not likely to reduce as the programme of public realm investments is rolled out.
But these are necessary investments in the recovery of Glasgow city centre. Some other UK cities may recently have been more successful in attracting private money but all that means is that Glasgow’s untapped potential has grown.
This article was first published in The Herald on Wednesday 16 April 2025
