IS it wrong to mourn a shop, to miss it? Because I do. Watt and Grant in Aberdeen. John Smith’s on St Vincent Street in Glasgow. And most of all: Marks and Spencer on Sauchiehall Street. I went to that M&S pretty much every day for 15 years, so it’s normal, surely, to feel the absence. Buildings, places, steel and stone: they help us to know where we are, and what we are.

I don’t want to exaggerate obviously: the old M&S was just a shop and there are lots of other branches to go to (I can still get my M&S organic houmous and couscous salad so middle-class existential crisis averted don’t panic). But the Markies on Sauchiehall Street has turned out to be quite important in the debate we’re having about the centre of Glasgow: its architecture, the high street, the Golden Z (no one calls it that), and most importantly, the future of the heart of our busy, beloved city.

Twenty years ago, some other big retailer would have snapped up the M&S site in no time (in fact, 20 years ago, M&S wouldn’t have shut it down in the first place). But the list of big retailers that have departed or disappeared is long – BHS, Watt Brothers, Debenhams, and plenty of others – and there basically isn’t a business that could, or would want to, take on that space anymore. The building is still there, but the ground underneath it has shifted.

The latest retail figures demonstrate what we’re talking about here. November is traditionally the second busiest month of the year for high-street shopping, but this year football in Scotland was down 0.9% on November last year. The figures are worse than the UK decrease of 0.7% year-on-year and the Scottish Retail Consortium called them “underwhelming”. Quite.

None of it is surprising though: it’s part of a trend of people shopping by tapping their phones while sitting on the settee rather than taking the car into town and paying for a parking space, or not finding a space, or getting a fine for breaching the LEZ, or getting the subway in and finding that it shuts early on a Sunday, or trudging up to Sauchiehall Street, through the crisp packets and the fag packets, to find half the shops are shut. I don’t want to be too dystopian about it, but have you been there recently?

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Obviously, some of the problem isn’t unique to Glasgow: the trend away from physical shopping is nationwide and worldwide. But Glasgow has particular problems, some of which are self-inflicted and what’s been happening with the old Sauchiehall Street M&S is a good example. A developer, Fusion Students, had a plan to turn the site into flats (retaining the art deco frontage) but the city council has rejected the idea. Too big, they say. Too many students, they say. And it’ll spoil the view.

To be fair to the council, the vote was close, but the fact that the decision didn’t go the developer’s way looks to me like evidence that the people in charge of our city still aren’t getting it. There is supposedly an official council plan for Sauchiehall Street, Buchanan Street and Argyle Street, or the Golden Z (no one calls it that), and it says that the city needs to move away from the dominance of shopping and double its population. Basically, we need to move people into the centre big-time.

The principle of this is sound: compared to other cities, Glasgow has a grossly under-populated middle (only around 20,000 people live there). And while there could be problems with too many flats and houses in the centre – you don’t want to import the suffocation of suburbia – there’s no prospect of a revival in physical retail so a big increase in residential is the only realistic option. In other words, flats on the site of the old M&S is exactly what we need, all of which makes the council’s decision a bit bewildering.

The reasons they gave for turning the plans down also make no sense. The stuff about spoiling the view is waffle (whose view? of what?) but the stuff about too many students is also troubling. I’ve been watching my teenage godson try to find a flat in Glasgow while he studies at Glasgow Caledonian and it’s been tricky because it’s expensive and because there aren’t many suitable flats in the area. Answer: we need more flats for students.

Apparently, the council recognises this problem but is concerned about an “over-concentration” of student flats in the centre of Glasgow. But not only does this have a whiff of studentaphobia (most students are responsible in fact), it appears to lack an understanding of the sort of accommodation that’s going to be appropriate for the city centre. The families that live in the suburbs are going to stay in the suburbs, leaving the city for single people, young couples, retirees who want places they can walk to, and the students. And there’s nothing wrong with any of this; in fact, it sounds really good to me. There’s every chance I might buy a little flat in the centre of Glasgow myself when I’m older and don’t want to drive all the time.

The Herald:

There are some signs that the changes are happening. The plans for flats above the Timpson shop on Buchanan Street. The student flats proposed for Osborne Street in Merchant City. And the plan for 430 flats on The Herald’s old stomping ground at the top of Renfield Street. All of these proposals are at a fairly advanced stage and will need the council’s permission at some point. The council should give it.

The main reason to push ahead in this way I’ve already mentioned – retail is dwindling in the city centre and we can’t go back – but there are other reasons too. The pedestrianised bit of Sauchiehall Street, as it is at the moment, effectively shuts down after 6pm and isn’t a particularly nice place to walk about. But move hundreds of people into the area, particularly young people who like to socialise, and you suddenly change the atmosphere of the place for the better.

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Of course, it will mean the look of some parts of the city changing, but we can mitigate the effects where we can (by saving the art deco front of the old M&S for example). We also have to accept that change isn’t something to fight in the centre of Glasgow, it’s something to embrace.

And we shouldn't be too cautious either. I miss the old M&S. I miss popping in every day for my houmous. But the centre of Glasgow isn’t about people like me anymore. it’s about the people who might come and live there. Yes, the centre isn’t what it used to be 20 years ago. But in 20 years from now, with an influx of thousands of new Glaswegians, it could be something different, something lively, something rather wonderful.