Let leisure lead city revival

I HAVE been following the new Dundee Matters campaign run by the Tele’s sister paper, The Courier.

It has been really good to see issues surrounding our high streets being addressed, with the campaign aiming to generate a conversation about how the city can improve on the situation. Dundee is not alone in this; most cities are facing what has been called “the death of the high street”.

It is a shame when you walk in town and see “for sale” signs and boarded-up shops, but it is an unfortunate consequence of the transition to online shopping.

One of the many solutions which is often brought up in discussions about how to revitalise the high street is to “think beyond shops”.

I have made clear before my thoughts on what I think

Dundee city centre should do – which is look at a more leisureled approach where instead of retail, there are activities and venues which replace a lot of the vacant units in the centre.

There are already some venues in the centre that are aiming to do this.

The Keiller Centre is a fantastic example of a venue in the city centre that is reinventing itself as a community hub, and houses the Federation Gallery.

We have also seen with some of the new additions in other parts of the city, such as Tenpin, that there is definitely an appetite for leisure-based activities. Every time I go past

Tenpin, it’s always packed, and it’s brilliant.

Retail shouldn’t be considered an afterthought though and, although it isn’t in the city centre, the Stack Retail Park serves as a great example of effective retail space being utilised.

Once a bustling leisure park filled with a bowling alley, a nightclub and restaurants, the Stack was more or less abandoned for many years, until it was bought over and converted into a retail park and it has been a success story for the area.

So, there is still room for retail as well, and the Stack proves that it can still work. But a leisure-led approach to our city centre is something that should be considered for the long term.

Having markets and festivals is something that other city centres have benefited from, and we have seen with recent events such as the Summer Bash Streets Festival that if you bring events to the city centre, people will come.

The Dundee Food Festival in July will be a good indicator to see if leisure activities continue to draw crowds to the city centre.

I think Dundee city centre has an exciting future; we just need to look at what can work, and what can’t, something which the Dundee Matters campaign is aiming to address.

Exhibition at the Keiller Centre.