Edinburgh's iconic Princes Street has lost more than a quarter of its retailers since 2020.
The main thoroughfare was once well-known for its shopping and especially its department stores like Jenners, House of Fraser and Debenhams - but they are now gone.
Along with retail stores all over Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, the street was hit hard by the pandemic while some outlets moved to the newly opened St James Quarter.
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Now residents of Edinburgh have spoken out about the empty retail spaces and boarded up shops that line city centre. One local resident and businessman who shared their opinion was 37-year-old Èoin Ó Muchrú who creates and sells vibrant oil paintings for his company PixieArtist.co.uk.
Èoin explained: “It doesn’t make the main street in Edinburgh look good. I think it’s a bit of a shame there is a lot of independent retails being pushed outside of the Castle Street and these spaces are just not affordable.”
Èoin, who sells his paintings at many local markets including on Castle Street, went on to say that many of these retail units will be big businesses and that “You’re always going to find that it’s never going to be a small independent company.”
And Èoin isn’t the only Edinburgh local who is worried about the high street. Part-time worker at Crazy Bastard Sauce, 22-year-old, Rory Marr said: “It’s always been a tragedy.”
“Watching it collapse slowly but surely knowing people want to fill those shops but actually can’t afford to be able to do so, it’s painful.”
“It’s so blatant to watch everything to close one by one and see the knock-on effects of other people closing around them because no one wants to come here anymore, it’s agonising.”
Support worker Sam Calder, 44, also shared her opinions about the lack of retail shops being filled. Sam said: “It’s really sad” and went onto say “You wonder where all the shops have gone.”
Sam went onto say she would “like to see” the return of a department store on Princes Street.
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