Arbroath doesn’t need another edge
It needs a reinvented centre worthy of the town
On the Edge
There’s a new retail park about to open on the edge of the old retail park — which itself sits on the edge of Arbroath.
The massive new Home Bargains will be almost as close to Carnoustie as it is to parts of Arbroath.
Well, get in your car if you have one — that’s progress!
Meanwhile, Arbroath has just been shortlisted for the Plook on the Plinth Award 2025:
“Of all the towns on the east coast, Arbroath is the saddest, with a run-down town centre and a distinct lack of investment. Arbroath compares badly to Montrose, Stonehaven and even Peterhead and Fraserburgh.”
I certainly feel sad when I visit the centre of my hometown.
On the High Street today, a former shoe shop — shut for a decade — was recently discovered to be a cannabis farm. Next door, a former bridal shop — also a cannabis farm.
That isn’t just changing shopping habits. It’s neglect.
Every recent generation of Arbroathians has probably felt their town decline: de-industrialisation, the fall of the fishing industry and tourism — the background music for a century.
Across Scotland, from Kilmarnock to Kirkcaldy, there are similar situations. Towns look outward toward retail parks and ring roads. Each new edge promises prosperity, yet every year the centres grow more unloved.
Ambitious Past
Much of Arbroath shows up the wrong colour on the deprivation maps, yet throughout history it often aimed high.
The sandstone towers of Arbroath Abbey — where the abbot, Bernard de Linton, drafted the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320 were perhaps an inspiration to the decision-makers and leaders who followed.
There are grand parks, an impressive harbour, a train station built on the scale of Stirling rather than Montrose, one of the oldest football clubs in the country, and a cliff path that would be more famous if it were on the west coast.
Detroit or Amsterdam?
And the new A Place for Everyone scheme is a brilliant sign of reinvention — a town moving forward with investment in walking, cycling and public spaces.
But the new route brushes the High Street without truly joining it, and it doesn’t link to the new retail park also opening this year.
So what is it that Arbroath wants to be?
Amsterdam — where walking and cycling routes connect people and purpose?
Or Detroit — where the answer to everything was a bigger car park?
The real test is consistency. If we value the centre and want to be cleaner and better connected, then every new edge-of-town retail park bypasses the heart of the town it claims to serve.
Is Arbroath’s future about community and revitalising the town centre — or about convenience?
Ambitious Future?
If I need to visit Home Bargains, Arbroath already has one — yes, it’s in the shopping centre on the High Street.
And there’s still good reason to care about town centres.
In Arbroath, the library, theatre, community centre, banks, police station and harbour — the pulse of civic life — remain there, even as we’re more connected digitally.
The town centre should continue to be reinvented to honour Arbroath’s ambitious past while refreshing that ambition for today.
Dundee & Angus College moving in, as proposed, would be a great follow-up to A Place for Everyone.
The High Street is not just a struggling shopping area, it is the route between the Harbour and Abbey, two of Arbroath’s best assets. Perhaps the northern and southern ends shouldn’t be retail at all, with many of the units converted into new housing.
I know none of this is easy, but a joined-up masterplan is required. If I were a town planner, I’d at least say the town doesn’t benefit from another retail park.
Bernard de Linton would surely shake his head at the idea that Arbroath’s ambition now ends at the edge of town, where the dual carriageway begins.
Or maybe he’d be out there himself — SUV idling, trolley half-full of cheap toiletries and crisps and a plastic garden gnome.
Arbroath doesn’t need another edge. It needs a reinvented centre worthy of the town.
By Michael Loudon — Without Invitation
