Maybe we’ll have to convert empty shops into housing – Kevin Buckle

If even takeaways are going under, the future for high street shopping looks bleak writes Kevin Buckle

There has been an increase in the number of old-fashioned barbers in the city (Picture: Lisa Ferguson)

I finally managed to get my hair cut on Thursday having booked the appointment as soon as hairdressers were given the go-ahead to return.

Jardinework is based in East Fountainbridge so my walk to Waverley Mall took me along the West Port, through the Grassmarket and up Victoria Street before descending the News Steps.

What struck me was how many takeaways on my route were not open at 10.30 in the morning. What then struck me was just how many takeaways there had been.

Now to be honest this last observation should have been no surprise to me.

When I was in the Grassmarket after the pedestrianisation interesting retail, I was told by the council, was to be encouraged when in fact every time a retail shop closed it became another food outlet mostly geared to not needing any permissions to do so.

I suppose I had just got used to it as I regularly still walk that way but the shops being closed had somehow highlighted it again. Of course this is something that has happened all over the wider city centre.

Virtually all the takeaways rely on a mixture of those working nearby and tourists so now is certainly not a good time for them. Truth be told there really is now too many so a cull would on the whole do no harm except to those unfortunate enough to close but whereas before there were retail businesses who were priced out of taking these shops I’m not sure now that even once things have recovered there are the retailers to fill these premises.

I have noticed in the last year or so an increase in old-fashioned barbers but I doubt they alone could fill the spaces left and certainly that would just replace one problem with another as the aim is supposedly to have a mixed offering of shops if at all possible.

Any new development claims to encompass “interesting retail” and the arts and of course it is well documented how that all worked out in King’s Stables Road.

The latest to make such claims is the replacement for Debenhams which plans an entire new close of interesting shops as well as the ubiquitous hotel.

The Registers development at the east end of Princes Street I’m sure I read wanted “artisans” in their shops upping the ante, though I doubt their wishes will be fulfilled.

Interestingly, as I mentioned last week Avalanche was given some temporary space in the mall window on Waverley Bridge. Almost as an afterthought to fill a wall space I added a bright yellow Arctic Monkeys poster.

It has proved a real draw as youngsters see the poster and as several parents told me dragged then into the mall. Simple but effective and the most successful of what I hope is an interesting display.

While this shows that the very old skool ways can still work even with today’s youngsters the problem now is people are far less easily enticed into a shop – to the point of taking a picture of something in a window to look it up online later!

It may very well be that eventually the only solution to empty shops and offices in the city centre is to return them to their original use as people’s homes.