Out of town shopping malls and designer outlet villages are always popular with bargain hunters. They are convenient to get to, there is usual plenty of free parking and the sales rarely end. It should be a recipe for retail success but that is not always the case, as this abandoned site in West Lothian rather grimly illustrates.
Five Sisters Freeport Shopping Village and Leisure Park, near West Calder, opened its doors to customers on September 5, 1996, claiming to be Scotland’s number one designer outlet village with over 40 stores, cafes and a host of leisure attractions.
It made a promising start. Achieving its millionth visitor in February of the following year, plans were drawn up to expand the 50,000 square feet of retail space and add a golf course and an indoor snow sports centre.
However, the opening of an outlet village in nearby Livingston, a new town, in October 2000 impacted heavily on the Five Sisters, drawing away customers and stealing most of its sales almost overnight. In November 2004, the complex closed and, despite various plans to redevelop the site, the buildings remain empty and the car park overgrown.
The complex was not entirely abandoned and has subsequently been used for the filming of zombie movies and TV series and the staging of civil defence exercises. Thanks to decent site security, it remains in a largely unvandalised state.
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Secret Scotland 