Donald MacLeod: Nightmare on Sauchiehall Street as brand new look plummets into same old shambles

IN To A Mouse, our great bard and party animal, Robert Burns, penned: “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, gang aft agley.”

And, as with the exorbitantly over-budget Edinburgh trams scheme, Glasgow’s £7.2 million Sauchiehall Street Avenue project has gone very aft agley!

It’s a regeneration initiative that will see the creation of a multifunction service verge, with a tree-lined cycle lane, reduced traffic flow, cycle stands, seating, bus shelters, improved street lighting, wider pavements and more tables and chairs outside licensed premises.

However, they are all over the shop as the demolition and tearing up of this iconic shopping street continues at a glacial pace, and Glasgow’s entertainment mile is turned into what looks like a war zone.

No one in the council, it seems, least of all those in charge of the project, gives a damn about the haphazard, damaging eyesore, or the falling footfall and the severe financial impact being felt by businesses the length and breadth of Sauchiehall Street.

Convenience stores, restaurants, fast food outlets, taxi drivers, pubs and clubs and retail outlets are all rightly making a song and dance about the tearing up of the cities entertainment mile.

And as shoppers, tourists and clubbers avoid the place like the plague because the area looks like a part of bombed-out Beirut – and with no help coming from the council in the form of rates relief or any chance of receiving business interruption insurance – many businesses are set to follow Watt Brothers department store, Magnets, Pommes Frites, 5 to Zero, Tipsy, Food Fillas, Chequers and Rebel Lounge into the history books.

Trade in some shops such as Biggars, a music store that’s been around since the 19th Century or the Lifestyle convenience store which sits across the road from my club, The Garage, has fallen through the floor since the building work began.

Really, it’s nothing short of disgraceful!

Why is it that when massive projects and regeneration initiatives such as this are undertaken in Scotland, the Councils who are ultimately charged with completing the works always seem to fall flat on their faces at the first hurdle?

They always seem to become instantly inept and unable to join the dots between all their various executive committees, boards, stakeholders and departments.

They never factor in the damage these schemes will have in the intervening periods on those who have to try and survive while all around turns to chaos and rubble.

And why do they never ever show an ounce of sympathy, concern or remorse to all those caught up in their expensive well-meaning city plans? Answers on a postcard please.

I for one, as a weel-kent Glaswegian businessman, whose primary business The Garage is on Sauchiehall Street welcomed this investment.

I still do but I do not welcome the complete disregard the council seemingly has for all those businesses suffering while these cack-handed works are carried out, nor their total lack of empathy and communication. As expected they were very good at talking the whole project up, selling it to all and sundry when they initially received the grant but they have been absolutely abysmal in dealing with any of the problems, personal and financial of those whose lives they said will be made better when the works are completed.

Unless they get their act together, and quickly, there will be no businesses left on the street and as far as entertainment goes the only fun to be had will be kicking the plastic bin bags that now litter the place.

Again another result of short-term business planning and lack of communication.

The best-laid plans indeed!