'It feels like a wayward town' - Calls to save historic buildings at risk in Glasgow city centre

Glasgow city centre seems to be dying," said 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

"At one time you could have spent hours here," said Gibb, casting a look around at 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-floor office spaces.

The decline in footfall and rise in online shopping, accelerated by the pandemic, has hit hard, while the rapid inflation of construction costs and interest rates mean that much-needed residential conversions have stalled.

With Glasgow celebrating its 850th anniversary this year and hosting the - albeit slimmed down - Commonwealth Games in 2026, there's a galvanising awareness that global media will again be focused on the city.

Last year began with what some considered a clarion call and others a provocation when the former editor of the Architects' Journal, Rory Olcayto, wrote a searing essay on the state of the city. He argued that its much-vaunted reinvention from 1980s post-industrial decline to 90s and noughties cultural and commercial contender had ground to a near halt.

"Glasgow itself doesn't know what it's for," says Olcayto now. "Glasgow needs to think like a global city once again. At the moment it feels more like a wayward town."