CAN THE HIGH ST HOLD OUT? By Gavin Madeley
Market towns like Auchterarder are the backbone of Scotland. Today they lie almost deserted. And as its embattled shopkeepers reveal, every day that lockdown continues makes survival harder
AUCHTERARDER in Perthshire would usually be thronged on a sunny May weekend, not just with daytrippers but well-heeled locals, coming to enjoy the thriving High Street with its independent retailers.
The Lang Toun’s mile-and-a-half-long main thoroughfare is home to fashion stores and hairdressers, pubs and restaurants, two butchers, a baker, a candle-stocked gift shop.
The ironmonger has stood here for more than 100 years, while the oldest clothing shop would be marking its 170th anniversary – if it was allowed to open, that is.
Eight weeks of lockdown have turned one of the most prosperous high streets – just a pitch and putt from luxurious Gleneagles Hotel – into a ghost town.
Shopkeepers have gratefully snapped up the Chancellor’s business grants of £10,000, so too the furlough scheme, under which the Government pays 80 per cent of employees’ salaries. The final bit of assistance is a holiday from business rates.
But, like many high streets, the future remains far from secure. A Federation of Small Businesses survey this week found that around a third of Scottish small business owners forced to close during the coronavirus pandemic fear they may never reopen. Many worry that when they finally lift the shutters, social restrictions will be so severe that it will be impossible to make enough money to pay the bills.
Ally Kay, chairman of Auchterarder and District Community Council, said few premises come up to let in this ‘buoyant little town’. He said: ‘I think there’s only one standing empty. I don’t know what it might be like after Covid-19 has played its tune.’ The Scottish Daily Mail spoke to ten businesses to find out how they are coping.