East Kilbride locals have aired their views on the sale of East Kilbride shopping centre.
The town centre has been sold out of administration to M Core, owners of Glasgow’s Princes Square and The Centre in Livingston, for a cool £20 million.
This major transformation could see millions of pounds spent and includes the purchase of the centre’s car parks.
It is hoped new investment will breathe new life into the malls after years of decline.
Scottish News spoke to shoppers born and bred in East Kilbride to hear if they think the acquisition will bring what was once Scotland’s largest undercover shopping centre back from the brink - and if its controversial parking charges will be scrapped.
Georgie says she is wary about charges going forward and hopes to see more independent stores opening up. She said: “I think it’s a good thing that a company has taken it over. I’m apprehensive about the ongoing charges when they’ve done all the renovations, car parking charges, all these things.
“High car parking charges have been detrimental to East Kilbride for a long time. There’s other shopping centres with no charges, so that’s one of the concerns. The other thing is it’s all high street stores. I’d like to see some wee private shops coming in with a wee bit interest.”
Margaret hopes the new owners will bring life back into the town centre. She commented: “Hopefully they’ll make the centre look a bit better because it’s dire. I know that people are worried about the parking, because we’ve now only got one car park, so I don’t know how that’s going to work. The shopping centre’s been decimated. I feel sorry for the shopkeepers. I don’t know how they’re managing to keep going, everybody’s going to Silverburn because it’s free parking and there’s a lot more shops.
“That’s another reason people go to Silverburn and Braehead, free parking. So they haven’t really helped East Kilbride in that respect. I hope the new owners can bring the life back into this place because it’s went considerably downhill.”
Martin wants to see the centre thriving once again and is calling for car parking charges to be scrapped. He added: “I think all the downfall of the centre started when they started charging for the car parking. There was no need to do that. You can go to Silverburn, you can go to the Fort and not pay anything for your car parking, and I think that’s a big downfall on their side.
“The shops themselves… it used to be a thriving place, and it used to be nice. And now it’s just turned into a wreck and ruin. You can park your car, but there’s that many barriers because things are starting to deteriorate and fall to bits, and they’ve not got the money or the funds, or whoever’s in charge of it, to repair all these faults. You get a smashed window at the, the far door there and it takes about three or four weeks to fix. That escalator behind us broke down maybe about five months ago. It’s took about five months to fix it and now it’s shut down again.
“But hopefully with this new regeneration they’re doing at the other end, I think they’re going to bring in the big names, like bringing Zara back and all these other shops. You know, Topgirl or Topman. And it would bring people back.”