How often are you in a town or city centre and see an empty unit (or more) looking terrible…?
Mishmash of rough looking boarding, broken glass, windows whitewashed or part covered in flyers on the outer or peeling brown paper inside, woodwork failing, window frames peeling, branches and bushes growing where they shouldn’t.
Dragging down perceptions of the place, feeding negative media stories, dissuading potential customers from visiting and dwelling, making things harder for existing #highstreet businesses.
To be fair, in lots of places now council teams, BIDs, agents and community groups are on the case, tidying up the worst examples, vinyling, creating attractive window displays and the like.
So today to give a shout out to the volunteers for Our Union Street in Aberdeen who – with proactive support from local #property agents – are building an impressive portfolio of empty units they’ve tidied up.
Our main images showcase their latest project, 23 Union Street, the former Tourist Information Office. As David White, who kindly gave us a heads up on this, says:
“We converted this empty unit on Union Street to promote the “Tall Ships Race”. Our volunteers cleaned the unit inside and out and filled it with a number of exhibitions.”
So here’s to the Street Union volunteers and all those in town and city centres who are doing similar.
It’d be great to hear of other examples…
