‘Left to rot’: Glasgow’s crumbling heritage comes into focus for 850th anniversary
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Pressure grows to do something about city centre’s decaying buildings and empty shops in ‘year of urgency’. “Glasgow city centre seems to be dying,” says Anne Gibb, perched on a stone bollard on Sauchiehall Street, watching the Christmas shoppers hustle by. Ahead of her, the human stream parted around yet another segment of the precinct that had been fenced off as contractors dug up paving.
![[Libby Brooks]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2023/01/24/Libby_Brooks.png?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
“At one time you could have spent hours here,” says Gibb, casting a look around to the dark and vacant premises of once-thriving stores such as BHS and Marks & Spencer. “But now half the shops are empty and there’s nothing to replace them.”. Hers is a familiar refrain from visitors to Glasgow city centre in recent years, dismayed at the gap sites, stalled renovations and streets overlooked by empty windows of abandoned upper office spaces.
![[people walk along pavement on shopping street with large section cordoned off for building work with cones and barriers]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2ea875b15cd2777492be78ba0006058f0070a2ab/0_395_6048_3629/master/6048.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The decline in footfall and rise in online shopping, accelerated by the pandemic, has hit hard, while the rapid inflation in construction costs and interest rates means that much-needed residential conversions have stalled. With the city celebrating its 850th anniversary in 2025 and hosting the – albeit slimmed down – Commonwealth Games the year after, there’s a galvanising awareness that global media will again be focused on the city.
![[Large building is covered by shrouding and boards with an area of street cordoned off in front of it]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c54cbe4068fa9352cbed473a195b94cb15563998/0_0_6048_3629/master/6048.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Last year began with what some considered a clarion call and others a provocation when the writer, critic and former editor of the Architects’ Journal Rory Olcayto published a searing essay on the state of the city. His central thesis was that Glasgow’s much-vaunted reinvention from 80s post-industrial decline to 90s and noughties cultural and commercial contender had ground to a near-halt.
![[The Glasgow School of Art’s building under white plastic covering with scaffolding, cabins and boarding around it.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f045e60fbe9590512f18a4ddbfa7044f37638507/0_267_6048_3629/master/6048.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
