Red-faced council chiefs have been shamed into a clean up job on another Ayr town centre gap site.
Tumbleweed rolls through the Arran Mall this week — once the High Street's main shopping centre — which now lies all but empty.
Nearby traders fear their businesses might not last another year if the drop in footfall created by the abandoned mall continues.
Traders who once did their businesses have all but vacated the mall to make way for a cinema complex on the site — plans for which continue to stall.
Meanwhile, the much criticised project to build a new leisure centre next door is also set for failure.
This week, our cameras caught the desperate sight of large weeds and overflowing bins summing up the neglect of the once popular sight.
Now desperate business owners on nearby Alloway Street have told Ayrshire Live how the once bustling thoroughfare has become a ghost street.
Struggling shop owners claim they enjoyed busier days during the coronavirus pandemic.
Traders hoped the proposed leisure centre planned to replace the old shopping centre and department store at Hourstons would have provided them with a "lifeline".
And they told how landlords have slapped higher rates on their rent due to the expected state-of-the-art swimming complex.
But now with the project set to be axed, they are worried their businesses are doomed with some neighbouring shops already pulling the shutters down.
The owner of Total Vapes, who did not wish to be named, has already lost three members of staff due to the dramatic downturn in two years.
They said: “If this current situation in Ayr continues I think you will see a lot of empty shops in the town.
“I am in the position myself where if this continues, I won’t be open next year.
“We had people working for us but had to lay them off because the shops are just not as busy.
“You're sitting back and seeing the amount of footfall coming through, it is not anywhere near what it was.
“When Unique was open at least people would go down to the Arran Mall. But right now, up this side is a ghost town. It has gone downhill big time.”
Christine Moore, owner of The Wee Shop, added: “We had the one saving grace that kept us as small businesses going, the work on the leisure centre would start soon and re invigorate the street which is all but decimated in terms of customers (from the other businesses forced to move out).”
“We were told it was going to be like an Intu Braehead – with a cinema.
“It would have been amazing for the town. People from all over would have flocked to this.
“Then the new council come in and say no I’m not having that and scrap it.
“You’ve now got two empty shopping centres, you’ve got people who have spent a fortune having to move their business.”
Councillor Martin Dowey, the new leader of South Ayrshire Council, said: “The leisure centre will be scrapped but there is a process to go through, in the meantime we are looking at other ways to drive footfall into the town centre.
"Part of the former Hourstons building will be used for council offices which should have a positive effect on the area.”
A council spokesperson added: "Our town centre team will tidy up the mall and then carry out routine checks in the future."
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