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Dundee Matters: Why is our high street suffering and what can we do to change it?

Our new initiative – Dundee Matters – is aimed at listening to the strongly held views of our readers, finding solutions to the city’s problems, and driving change.
Lesley-Anne Kelly
A graphic showing the words 'Dundee Matters'
Our high street matters. Graphic by DCT design.

The future of Dundee matters to The Courier.

For more than 200 years now we’ve been shining a light on the pressing issues in the City of Discovery and have used our reporting to push for change.

Today, we launch a new initiative – Dundee Matters – aimed at listening to the strongly held views of our readers, finding solutions to the city’s problems, and driving change.

Our first target for this project is Dundee’s ailing high streets.

The perfect storm of the pandemic, a cost of living crisis, inflationary pressures and online shopping have led to a wave of city centre businesses pulling their shutters down.

This situation is not unique to Dundee, but that does not mean we, as a city, should simply accept this trajectory.

And nor will The Courier stop highlighting these issues on our other high-streets.

This is a project we hope to expand across the regions of our readership.

After tracking Dundee’s high streets we want to help change them

Our data team has been tracking the changing shape of our high streets and shopping centres since June 2023.

Now, we no longer want to simply track the data – we want to change it.

We’re asking our readers to share their views on the high street – on their high street.

What do they want to see more of, less of?

What brings them into town, what keeps them away?

What do you think our streets need to bring them back to life again?

To make them the focal point of activity, the social hub and the vibrant, beating, heart of our city they once were.

When heard, our shared ideas can help shape the future of Dundee.

So, let us know what you think in our survey, and by doing so put yourself in with a chance of winning money to spend on the very high streets you want to help change.

You can read our latest analysis of the Dundee high streets here.

High street summit

And finally, to show that we at The Courier are putting our readers’ voices front and centre of this initiative, we will host a high street summit at our city centre offices in May.

Here, we will put the issues you have identified to a room full of guests, from city leaders and business-owners, to artists, academics and you – the people of Dundee.

We will create a forum for solutions that we hope will help change the trajectory of the city centre and bring a fresh outlook as to how that is achieved.

If you would be interested in attending this summit and being one of those voices for change, please leave your details at the end of the survey.

Have your say. Make an impact.

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