You can sum up what Aberdeen city centre needs in one word. People.

That’s it. The solution to all the woes and travails facing the heart of the Granite City – and almost every city in the country – is people.

People working there, people playing there, people living there.

The working bit went a tad wonky thanks to that pesky pandemic. While the new norm of working from home has its pluses for individuals, it’s an anathema to a vibrant city centre. We are, though, starting to see a bit of a swing back to office working.

More and more people are finding they prefer to have people around them to collaborate with, bounce ideas off, have a yap and a gossip at lunchtime and nip out for a cheeky coffee or a wee post-work-week bonding pint. Cue a big thumbs up for brick-and-mortar traders.

The playing there is self-evident already. Take, for example, the Northern Lights Beer Festival at the weekend. That was 1,600 folk through the doors of the Music Hall for some rather fine brews (I know, I was one of them).

But they also went for a bite to eat or headed for another hostelry once they were done with their session. (Pick me, pick me … lunch in Nando’s before the festival and a pint in Aitchie’s on the way to the train).

Aberdeen city centre could thrive with more people living there

And Aberdeen has an abundance of stuff happening almost every month – Nuart Aberdeen is almost upon us. All of them bring people in, give them something to do, have them linger in the city centre and spend local. Everyone wins.

Now we have the living there bit of making the city centre all that it can be. Cue the recent scamper by the P&J through the nine – count ‘em, Jim, nine – conversion developments to create flats and homes in the city centre.

Now the naysayers are quick to dismiss much of this as student accommodation, but the last time I checked, students were – refers to notes – people. They shop in shops, drink in pubs, eat in restaurants (okay, fast food ones, but still).

And the other developments are rather chi-chi high-end flats just to mix it up with these new city centre dwellers.

Once completed, these developments have the potential to increase the city centre population by almost 500 souls. That’s a healthy chunk of change.

The more people who live there, the more shops will be supported, the more businesses will see the city centre as the place to be, the more services will be created, and the more people will want to live there. It’s a cycle of prosperity to turn the tables on Sir Keith Joseph.

And as people move into using our city centre as it should be, the more it will solve some of the issues there at the moment – empty shops, underused spaces, even anti-social behaviour.

It really isn’t rocket science. More just common sense.

So, and I really am reluctant to even misquote the lunatic – let’s build, baby build.

Scott Begbie is a journalist and editor, as well as PR and comms manager for Aberdeen Inspired.

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