There's a shopping mall in the centre of Glasgow called Buchanan Galleries which has an ambitious expansion plan. Or rather, it did have an ambitious expansion plan.
What they want to do sounds truly horrific for any fan of public transport: they want to turn their existing two-thousand space car park into shops, and then take over the adjoining Buchanan Street Bus Terminal. This is the main bus station for all long-distance buses to Glasgow - 40,000 passengers use it on a daily basis.
The developers from Buchanan Galleries want to build their new multi-story car park on top of the bus station, precipitating the closure of the terminus while the building work is done.
Not content with that, they also want to remove the steps in front of the Royal Concert Hall and install an "atrium entrance", thereby removing at a stroke a main gathering point for store-weary Glaswegians and sun-hungry office workers on their lunch break.
Shopping is not my thing, so I've never been inside Buchanan Galleries, but it seems to me that Glasgow needs more shops like Simon Cowell needs more TV exposure. And I'm not the only one to think that - it appears the developers now agree!
Never one to see a disastrous deal pass them by, Glasgow City Council are now exploring options to expand the mall themselves. If the plans are "no longer viable" for one developer, what makes Glasgow think they'll be viable for them?
This line in the Sunday Herald article says it all: "The scheme is expected to create 2,000 jobs."
Er, no it won't. If it's not economically viable then the shops will remain empty and there will be no jobs - just a massive white elephant where the bus station used to be.
1 comments:
Very glad to see this one hopefully falling by the wayside - I love the Concert Hall steps, and the bus station is very nice too.
I also feel like we're at saturation point for shops in the city centre. When so many units are lying empty in city centre, it makes no sense to create more!
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