To be honest, if I can, I avoid it, but sometimes you can’t. Either you’re getting the subway, or you’re heading to or from the train station, or you’re visiting the best record shop in the city (Fopp on Union Street) and you find yourself once again amid the grot and the grime and the gangs at the four corners or, as I like to call it when I’m feeling melodramatic, the junction of doom. And every time I’m there it’s the same feeling: embarrassed for the city I love.

If you’ve been through it or near it, you’ll know what I mean. It’s where Argyle Street and Jamaica Street and Union Street meet and it’s one of the busiest but also one of the most notorious and unpleasant parts of Glasgow. The busyness I get: you’ve got St Enoch subway down the road and Central Station up the road and you’ve got shops and fast-food places and pubs and all the rest of it. But it’s not busyness that’s the problem really, it’s the rest of it: the four corners is the place where, more than any other I can think of, all the problems Glasgow faces intersect, with results you can see for yourself.

A number of things are going on, and have been for ages. First, the decline of shopping and office working: there used to be lots of big businesses at or near the junction like Tower Records and Boots; you might also remember Beaverbrook’s the jewellers and Burtons menswear too. All gone now of course – the most recent to move out was Pizza Hut last year – and it’s not unique to Glasgow obviously; the internet hit, then the pandemic hit and people started working from home and other people started “working from home” and the city was filleted of much of the daily population who spend money; they’re all on their sofas now, scrolling, scrolling.

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Other factors have made things worse, principally the shocking state of the streets. Part of the problem is the mankiness of some human beings, particularly human beings that spit out chewing gum; the pavements are pitted with the stuff and it’s not easy to shift, or cheap, which is another part of the problem. Pressure on council budgets has meant a general decline in maintenance and cleanliness. Particularly bad in this respect is Union Street, which is the bit of Glasgow lots of people see first when they get off the train at Central.

What makes things even more unpleasant, I’m afraid, is the fact that the four corners has become a big draw for trouble as well. In the past three years, the police have been called to deal with incidents at the junction nearly 7,000 times; on average, that’s 44 calls a week in response to theft, sexual offences, disturbances and all kinds of other stuff, which is a remarkable figure. Sadly, it’s getting worse as well: in 2023, officers responded to 2,280 calls; in 2024, it was 2,373; God knows what it is now.

The police say they put high-visibility patrols into the area during the day and at night and do intelligence work targeting people involved in the supply of drugs and I have no reason to doubt that, although the most familiar aroma at the four corners, other than burger and sausage roll, is marijuana, lots of it. The problem is the self-fulfilling one that an unkempt and unpleasant place draws in the trouble-doers who make it more unkempt and unpleasant and down we go. The Scottish Government’s free bus travel policy for under-22s also facilitates the problem: they jump on the bus, cause trouble on the bus, then jump off and cause trouble at the four corners, the bill is sent to us, and on it goes.

But maybe, just maybe, there’s a bit of hope. For a start, there are still some great businesses in the area: Fopp I’ve already mentioned, but there’s also MacSorley’s on Jamaica Street, which is famous for its music and live bands and draws people from all over the city, the country, the world. I was speaking to the mother and son who run it and they do an amazing job, but it didn’t take long for the subject of the state of the streets to come up. People shouldn’t have to wade through debris and detritus to get to one of Glasgow’s greatest pubs.

How a hotel might look on the Pizza Hut corner (Image: CDLH)

There are other bits of hope. The council’s Avenues Project, which aims to improve some of the city’s streets, includes parts of Argyle Street and it’s been making quite good progress, particularly down towards the Merchant City end. We’ve also just learned that the old Pizza Hut is getting a facelift with a view to making it attractive to a hotel developer. This is great news, although if I was the hotel developer, particularly if it wasn’t the budget end, I’d take a look at the area outside the hotel and wonder what my potential customers would think. You’re unlikely to attract a quality developer to a part of town that lacks quality.

There’s a similar plan emerging just up from the junction at the Egyptian Halls on Union Street. Councillors are being asked next week to approve Ediston as a developer who could turn the place into a hotel; if given the go-ahead, the council will then apparently proceed with a compulsory purchase order to wrest the building from its current owner Derek Souter.

I’ve been in the building and it absolutely would lend itself to a hotel; in fact, I’d say it was a perfect choice. But the big question, as always, is money: I cannot see the Halls, a heritage building with all the issues that brings, being turned into a hotel without significant public investment as well, not least in the street outside. It always comes back to the streets. Union Street is the grottiest thoroughfare in Glasgow.

Spruced up and improved, we could start to think about the streets for residential purposes, although not until the SNP changes its policy on rent controls and allows developers to make decent money on expensive projects. Decline happens in stages, with one change begetting another, and regeneration is the same. Hopefully, the old Pizza Hut and the Egyptian Halls are the first steps, but we also need tighter control of offending, zero tolerance of litter, and an improvement to the streets.

It won’t happen quickly – the four corners has fallen far and fast – but perhaps we could try to reach a lower bar first: tackle the grot and the grime and the gangs and bit by bit, the junction of doom will improve. We’re all looking forward to it.