Aberdeen’s Union Street fills shops, but vacancies remain above 2020 level

Aberdeen’s Union Street has fewer empty ground-floor units than it did in February, according to a September survey, offering a measure of progress for the city’s effort to revive its centre. Property consultancy FG Burnett counted 38 vacant units among 188, a vacancy rate of 20.2%, down from 45 units, or 24%, six months earlier. The rate remains above the 18% the firm recorded when its survey began in February 2020.

The figures are a check on a broader regeneration effort described in a 27 September BBC report. Aberdeen’s Our Union Street group has worked with property owners, agents, businesses, volunteers and the council to bring premises back into use. The survey shows that vacancies have fallen since February; it does not establish how much of the change was caused by any one part of that effort.

Finding tenants for empty premises

Our Union Street grew from an emergency effort to address the decline of the city’s main shopping street. Its leader, former FTSE 100 chief executive Bob Keiller, works without pay, the BBC reported. The group audited premises, traced absent landlords and brought information about available units and financial incentives together online. Volunteers have also cleaned and improved the appearance of vacant properties and the street around them.

The BBC reported that 57 of 198 units were empty in 2023. Of those, 33 have since been filled and a further 14 were in the process of being let, while another 20 units became vacant during the initiative. Keiller told the BBC that units were being filled faster than they were emptying. The turnover matters: filling a shop is progress, but a new vacancy elsewhere can reduce the gain across the street.

Grants and public investment

Financial help forms part of the approach. The BBC said available support includes council grants to fit out premises and a two-year discount from business rates. In June, the Scottish Government announced another £600,000 for Our Union Street, bringing its contribution to £1 million after an earlier £400,000. These are government contributions to the project, separate from the council support described by the BBC.

The Scottish Government said its earlier funding had supported vacant-unit makeovers, shopfront improvements, cleaning, maintenance and a smartphone app. It also said occupancy and footfall had increased, although its announcement did not provide a measurement series for that claim. FG Burnett’s vacancy survey supplies a separate measure of premises in use, but does not measure footfall or identify which intervention brought a tenant to a particular shop.

The programme extends beyond shopfronts. The BBC reported work to examine unused upper floors, widen parts of Union Street’s pavements and build a new indoor food-and-drink market. It put the market’s cost at £40 million, funded by the council and the UK Levelling Up Fund, and said the former BHS building was being converted into an entrance plaza. These projects could change how people use the centre, but their eventual effect is still unknown.

The obstacles still visible

Vacancies have not fallen evenly along Union Street. FG Burnett said the largest concentration remains around Market Street, where some buildings do not suit occupiers’ requirements for size or layout. It also said road and public-realm works had affected pedestrian access and the experience of moving through parts of the street. The BBC reported that some residents were weary of construction disruption and new traffic restrictions.

The difficulties are familiar beyond Aberdeen. The BBC described fragmented building ownership, older premises needing upgrades, rising business costs and shopping and services moving online as obstacles to high-street recovery. It reported a survey by retail body Revo and consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton in which two-thirds of town-centre experts thought there was still 20% to 40% too much retail space. That finding concerns town centres generally, rather than the number of empty units in Aberdeen.

The BBC also reported that the Trinity shopping centre, bought by local developer Robert Keane in 2023, was set to gain a national leisure occupier. Keane predicted the city would look and feel different by 2027. For now, that is a developer’s forecast. FG Burnett plans to survey Union Street again in six months, providing another comparable reading of whether the recent reduction in ground-floor vacancies continues.