The Courier’s series of articles on the state of our Waterfront makes for sobering reading.

From empty units to businesses that have left to vacant sites untouched for years, progress on the £1.6 billion regeneration of Dundee’s Waterfront has undoubtedly stalled.

While relentless positivity about our city can be useful, there comes a time the council – and others, including ourselves – must be held to account, and the articles by reporters including Ben MacDonald and Laura Devlin are important and necessary.

As the empty units were listed, from Beefeater – the only restaurant and bar directly on the riverside – to Jannettas ice cream parlour at Slessor Gardens, and the cavernous St Andrews Brewing Company and neighbouring Brasserie Ecosse, I won’t have been alone in scratching my head and asking: “Why?”

While it’s easy to point to the council’s unwillingness to bend to the needs of individual retailers (and there’s no doubt this is a factor), the truth is that conditions have rarely been harder to survive in almost any city centre.

Every city and town centre is on its knees

Every week I travel and see the devastation of a perfect storm of retail events across the country.

I give you Carlisle the other week, when I wandered in the rain looking for........

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