It was quite a thrill trying on a new Superdry shower-proof jacket at the Bon Accord shopping centre in Aberdeen.

I know, you must think that I’m quite sad and lead a boring life.

Right on both counts, so this lit up my day; I bought it straight away.

But there’s a deeper, more serious point underlying Superdry’s move into what has been described ad nauseam as “the ailing Bon Accord centre”.

Its arrival has helped the shopping mall zip up against the chilling winds of the retail downturn, cost-of-living crisis and Covid after-effects.

It hasn’t really fully recovered from John Lewis, the Disney Store, and others jumping ship during Covid.

Marks and Spencer was also just around the corner – with obvious spin-off benefits for Bon Accord – until high-tailing it down to the rival Union Square to open a new mega-store.

Superdry’s relocation and hefty investment might act as a beacon for other companies, large and small, to follow suit.

But it also highlights the plight of many businesses at the other end of the scale, which struggle to establish a foothold in the high street due to red tape.

This is what the new Press and Journal Fresh Start campaign is all about.

It’s designed to attack head-on something which has been eating away at our shopping streets; it dominated a recent election survey........

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