On a Tuesday night in the last week of November, cold air is biting the cheeks of the hundreds of bundled-up shoppers walking along Glasgow’s Buchanan Street.
From the foot of the street, you can hear the clanking and grinding of St Enoch's Winter Wonderland over the blast of a busker playing electric guitar. But the back of the square is hushed as if the area is holding its breath.
The streets behind St Enoch Shopping Centre, including Howard Street, Maxwell Street, and Fox Street, were branded in a planning application as so "dangerous” by a nearby employer, he asked staff not to work late amid “anti-social behaviour” and “public drug use”. A female resident who used to work on Howard Street said that it “attracts undesirables,” and as a woman, she did not feel “safe” in the area.
The comments were made to voice support for a new 19-storey, 236-room Radisson Apart Hotel with a rooftop bar on Howard Street. But the firm’s plans, which involved the demolition of the B-listed former McCorquodale’s Printers building, were rejected last week by Glasgow City Council. Concerns over the loss of another historic building in the city centre conservation area and the “overbearing” proposed look of the new hotel resulted in five out of nine councillors refusing the plans at the applications committee.
At around 6pm, the Golden Z is still filled with merrymakers and shoppers scooping up early Black Friday deals, but the end of the St Enoch Christmas Market is a perimeter few cross.
Inside the popular Glasgow Hootenanny pub on Howard Street, staff say the area has become “worse” over the past few years. The first workers arrive to open at 10am, and those on the closing shift leave between midnight and 1am. Bailey I’Anson, who has worked at the pub for more than two years, says the area can “certainly get more tense when the sun goes down”.
The pub is a few doors down from the St Enoch Hotel, a 42-room accommodation that has been operating as a homeless hotel. “That can attract some rougher customers,” says Bailey, adding that the bus stop outside is “notoriously dangerous”.
Tonight, the bus stop swells and dwindles as groups of people are taken away by the various buses that trundle along the one-way street. There is a nervous atmosphere between the commuters who want to get out of there and those hanging around the hotel entrance.
“Recently we have been getting a lot more trouble because it’s Christmas time,” he says. The increase in footfall around St Enoch Centre has driven the pub to hire more bouncers and security to protect staff. “It can certainly get sour out there sometimes.”
“In the past two and a half years, it has definitely gotten a bit sketchier,” he adds. “And Fox Street is notorious for being a dodgy street to go down. There are very few streetlights and lots of unsavoury behaviours.”
Fox Street is quiet tonight. It is framed on one side by the derelict printworks and the vacant lot that was meant to open in autumn 2024 as a flagship Motto by Hilton Glasgow. The rear of the Virgin Hotels Glasgow, abandoned since December 2023, looms above the middle of the street. The occasional waft of marijuana smoke from a car or passerby is about the only sign of life along Fox Street, until a peculiar man in a parka with his trousers tucked haphazardly into his boots rushes past and plucks the parking tickets from the windshields of three cars, then disappears into the city centre.
Bailey says more lighting would help the area feel safer. “The more you can see, the more you can be aware of your surroundings and keep your wits about you," he says. "Even as a quite tall man, I still feel uneasy around there, let alone a coworker who is five feet and a girl. If I’m feeling unsafe, I can’t imagine how they are feeling.”
Friends Lesley Kennedy and Tracey Black, of Lanarkshire, are visiting Glasgow city centre to do some Christmas shopping. We meet behind Winter Wonderland’s Big Wheel as they make their way back to the car. The pair describe the area around St Enoch as “harrowing” at the weekends.
“You can see it change at a certain time if you’re out shopping during the day,” Tracey says. “After half past six, it is a different vibe in the town.”
Lesley says that the city centre felt safer a few years ago. “Even at ten o’clock at night, you would feel safe in Glasgow, but over the past two or three years, it is wholly different, different people,” she says. “I wouldn’t like to wander about here on my own.”
The pair are together and would find it unthinkable to traverse this part of the city alone. “I would walk 20 minutes longer than do a shortcut through a side street,” Lesley says. “I wouldn’t feel safe as a female walking about in back streets at nighttime.”
“I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw any police officers around here at night,” she adds. “At this time of year, it’s really busy with office parties, but it’s not as safe as it used to be.”
“Definitely not,” Tracey adds.
The empty buildings around the city centre are a magnet for people to congregate, and even in the early evening, they wouldn’t feel safe walking in the vicinity. Pointing to the rear of St Enoch Centre, Lesley says that there is a lack of lighting, and it feels dark. “That is quite a tricky area to walk,” Lesley says. “Even a male walking on his own, it’s the same for everybody, it’s not just females.”
The glass rear of the St Enoch Shopping Centre towers over Howard Street, the ramp to its car park creating the feeling that this part of town is abandoned, a no-man’s land reserved for vehicles. A maze of concrete staircases, barriers, and ramps creates a landscape of hidden corners.
“It is very dark and gloomy,” says Geoff Nolan, a teacher on his way to dinner with a friend. “The shopping centre has cut circulation to this older part of the city down here, and it has slowly killed it and suffocated it.”
“The whole place is quite seedy and run down,” he adds.
Since he and his friend have been in the area, neither says they have seen a police officer. “It is forgotten,” he says, gesturing to the “architecturally interesting” stretch near Slaters and St Andrew’s Cathedral. “There are lots of little old gems here that if it were better organised, and if the planning 30 years ago had been more stringent, we could have made something of this area and not killed it.”
In 2023, Glasgow City Council approved the first phase of plans that would see parts of the St Enoch Centre demolished and replaced with a mixed-use development that would include shops, offices, restaurants, and homes. At the time, the decision gave developers Sovereign Centros permission in principle, but more detailed plans were required to be submitted before any work could begin. Praxis, a real estate investor and manager, acquired the landmark shopping centre for an undisclosed sum in May 2025. No further applications for the demolition of the Centre have been submitted.
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Martin Botha, director at St Enoch Centre, recognises the concerns about anti-social behaviour in the streets surrounding the back of the mall, maintaining that the centre remains a “safe and welcoming destination”.
“Our security team maintains a strong and visible presence, supported by established partnership arrangements that allow us to respond quickly and effectively to any concerns,” he said, adding that the new Winter Wonderland has had a “positive impact” on St Enoch Square.
It is understood that new street lighting will be included in the forthcoming developments at Custom House Quay and the Broomielaw/Clyde Street Avenue. A spokesperson for Glasgow City Council said: “The area to the south of St Enoch Centre is considered to have a suitable level of street lighting in keeping with other parts of the city centre, which is generally well lit.
“We are currently unaware of any faults with the street lighting in this part of the city centre. However, lighting will be inspected in this area, and any faults will be repaired.”
“We know that drug activity in the city centre can impact on those who live, work and visit the area, and it contributes to wider safety concerns,” says Superintendent Jackie Dunbar of Police Scotland’s Greater Glasgow Division.
Following months of sustained, intelligence-led work targeting those involved in the supply of drugs in the city, officers carried out a sting called Operation Carex targeting St Enoch Square earlier this month. Seven people were arrested, and thousands of pounds worth of drugs, including heroin, cocaine, and cannabis, were seized.
“This work is continuing with local and national officers dedicated to patrolling the city, specifically the St Enoch and Clydeside areas, to effectively disrupt those concerned in the drug trade, and to reassure businesses,” said Superintendent Dunbar.
“We work closely with our partners, including Glasgow City Council, local businesses, and support services, to tackle drug-related crime and ensure anyone who is vulnerable receives the help and safeguarding they need,” she added. “This operation highlights our ongoing commitment to keeping the city centre safe, and we will continue to take firm but proportionate action against those involved in criminality.”
Marissa MacWhirter is a columnist and feature writer at The Herald, and the editor of The Glasgow Wrap. The newsletter is curated between 5-7am each morning, bringing the best of local news to your inbox each morning without ads, clickbait, or hyperbole. Oh, and it’s free. She can be found on X @marissaamayy1
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