Our high streets can thrive again and this is proof. Community-led organisations like Our Union Street in Aberdeen are making a real difference - and with Scottish Government funding, we are helping them build on that.

@ashleybell1314 @scotgov Wow. One new business opens in a street full of empty units and you hail that a success. What an actual cunt.

@scotgov When will something be done about the gangs of foreign men that plague every high street in Scotland???

@scotgov Lovely John isn't it. This is SNP Scotland ladies and gentlemen.

Are you for real John? Aberdeen was being called a ‘boom town for shopping’ and Scotland’s retail hotspot in 2007, the year the SNP took power. Now nearly a quarter of ground-floor units on Union Street are empty (around 24%/ 45 units in the latest FG Burnett survey). Dozens of shops and businesses have closed in recent years 27 on Union Street alone in 2024/25. Your government’s business rates regime (including the latest revaluation that hiked the national bill by £217m and left many shops and hospitality venues facing sharp rises, often higher than in England) has been repeatedly cited by traders and MSPs as a major factor crushing high-street viability. Community groups doing good work with public funding is welcome, but it doesn’t undo the damage from higher costs your party controls.

@scotgov When you hike business rates, charge for parking & fail to maintain the city or area then it’s little wonder high streets and towns are dying commercially.

@scotgov No John Swinney you are not helping them. That is a lie.

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@scotgov You & your circus of clowns have destroyed Aberdeen by dancing to the Greens tunes to keep yourself in your highly paid jobs. You should be ashamed to set foot in Aberdeen you absolute fraud.

@scotgov They'll never thrive while you lot are in charge, John. If you want to help business then cut tax, cut red tape and watch high streets naturally flourish - it's not rocket science 🤷‍♂️

@scotgov More deceitful SNP spin. You’re a liar @JohnSwinney Union Street is a disgrace. Empty shops, grafitti, drunks, junkies, & marauding groups of feral illegal immigrants. ALL on SNP’s watch. Now you try to sell us this snake oil “regeneration” of Aberdeen? You’re a disingenuous 🤡

@scotgov Hang on! Your SNP government’s stubborn, ideologically-driven opposition to North East oil and gas expansion is actively destroying jobs and gutting communities - leaving locals with emptier wallets and a dying high street while you lecture them about the “future”. Incredible 🤦

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@scotgov NOTHING will thrive except the public sector with the SNP in charge of the administration! Resign😡

@scotgov John walks through somewhere quiet after given notice he was coming….. Walk through Glasgow City Centre and don’t announce it. Go any day or night and see what a mess it is.

Never was any "union" but just colonisation of Scotland by the English colonial state so there should be no "union street". Scotland's liberation with the support of the international community will rename all those colonially named streets. Like in all colonies, the colonial power has given colonial names to many places and imposed his colonial statues. Time to rename and bring them all down!

@scotgov Thrive like Glasgow?

@scotgov High Street retail in the sense we knew it is over. We have to start making High Streets places where people live again. Offer developers incentives to re-purpose buildings and make them into flats. Once there is population density, smaller retail outlets will be viable again.

@scotgov Do you ever do any work?

@scotgov John, the reality is that the SNP have enabled the managed decline of our villages, towns and cities. You need to open your eyes and get on top of the drug deaths, the immigration issues and the general lawlessness in the country.

@scotgov Wait till you get the calls about Mr Molly walking into the public toilets in Aberdeen.....

@scotgov Over the past 2 decades, Scotland's high streets have been decimated. Shops boarded up or occupied by money laundering vape shops etc. High rates and taxes. Consumers disincentivised to visit by the war on motorists. Who is responsible for that decline? Go find a mirror.

@scotgov Over the last 20 years you have overseen the decline in our high streets, your policies and your decisions have caused this

@scotgov Are you taking the pi*s ? Your policies have totally destroyed our once thriving city centre … it’s like a ghost town

@scotgov Scotlands high-streets have been in decline for years—empty units, struggling shops, the usual post-retail apocalypse vibe under the SNP & the guy who’s been in the thick the SNP government for 50yrs is now the one announcing the revival like he just invented community spirit

@scotgov Ah, the West end. Trust you never went down to the other end of Union Street with all the migrants, junkies and street drinkers then? You're a fraud John.

@scotgov You had a recent look at Glasgow , Dundee or closer to home Perth city centres John ? High streets with multiple vacant units. All thanks to SNP.

@scotgov Hundreds of billions of oil money has flowed through Aberdeen since oil was discovered, yet we have to rely on community groups to turn the desolation of Union St. around. Look at Oslo and Tromso, and we're still not ONE inch forward for Independence. Not One!

@scotgov I switch from my "Followers" feed to "For You" and first up is this cretin; how much are we Scottish taxpayers forking out for this clown to promote his shi-ite?

@scotgov Comedy fuken gold

@scotgov Your anti-car rhetoric is killing Glasgow’s high streets. That and the rubbish and sheer neglect of our built heritage. I don’t know how I ever trusted the SNP.

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@scotgov If only the nats hadn't killed high streets in the first place we wouldn't be in this mess! If the nats hadn't dumbed down education (now into a 2nd generation) then people wouldn't believe everything the nats say and vote for incompetence. You are the problem not the solution!!

@scotgov Our high streets are hideous eyesores , the remnants of any past prosperity replaced by illegal vape shops and the like. Unregulated changes giving rise to the risk of fire. Places where maurauding immigrants strike terror in the night.(and day)

@scotgov One of Glasgow's main streets was closed down for a day. Hardly my definition of thriving

@scotgov 'My party broke it so now i'll pretend to fix it'.