Private firm promotion plan for Aberdeen's Union Street

Creating a private firm to promote Aberdeen's Union Street could attract vital investment ands help turn around its fortunes, it has been suggested.

Union Street runs through the heart of the Granite City and was once its flagship retail zone.

Like many other high streets in Scotland, shops have been closing and units are lying empty.

An emergency summit was held on Wednesday and heard how a new body could focus on marketing the area.

It would also aim to identify companies that could benefit from a move to Union Street, which is sometimes nicknamed the Granite Mile.

The suggestion was from Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce (AGCC) at the business summit.

More than 150 businesses and organisations took part to identify improvements for the thoroughfare.

The chamber's Ryan Crighton said Union Street was a "very emotive subject" and something "very close to our hearts".

"There's nobody really owning the narrative of Union Street," he said.

"So we have proposed bringing forward a private organisation to sell the positive points."

He described the event as a "festival of ideas."

The summit's keynote speaker, Richard Laing, professor of urban collaboration at Northumbria University, highlighted the challenges facing Union Street.

He said it was "unrecognisable in a bad way" when compared to the 1980s, but he believed its fortunes could be revived.

Richard Noble, managing director of property marketing firm FG Burnett, said the decline of the city centre had been a problem for a long time.

Mr Noble said Aberdeen city centre needed to compete with attractive high streets in nearby Banchory, Westhill, Stonehaven and Inverurie.

It comes as the city council carries out a public consultation on its long-term masterplan for the city centre.

The city council has said it is committed to investing in the city centre.