Silverburn boss talks about Glasgow shopping centre's future

The award, sponsored by The Glasgow Times, is part of the Glasgow Business Awards organised by Glasgow Chamber of Commerce with Royal Bank of Scotland as the main sponsor.

Silverburn may be one of the biggest shopping centres in the country - but it remains firmly rooted in its Pollok community.

The huge complex first opened its doors in 2007, boasts and annual footfall of over 14 million people and was named the UK's best shopping mall in 2019.

But, with Silverburn nominated for Glasgow's Favourite Business, the local connection is still key.

General manager David Pierotti said: "When the centre opened in 2007 we were dealing with a lot of people who were second or third generation unemployed. What we’ve done is given young people – and old – a career path.

“I started as a sales assistant in Burton’s in the mid-80s at 16 and worked my way through to running the biggest shopping centre in Scotland.

David Pierotti, general manager of Silverburn (Image: Newsquest)

“We do a lot of mentoring as well in the local community, and the theme here is just encouraging people to better themselves - that’s something we’re really passionate about.

“We support the Pollok Pantry, we support the food banks and we support numerous other good local charities.

"The pantry is one that’s my favourite. Historically organisations such as us would go to food banks and give a bag of food. The Pollok Pantry, which we sponsor, is different it focuses on dignity – mum, dad and the two kids can go in and pick what they want for £2 as opposed to being given and expected to say thank you.

“You could end up with fish fingers and pasta but the family don’t like it, they’re given a bag of food and told – politely, I’m not disrespecting food banks at all – ‘this is what we have’. We love the dignity side of it.

“The retailers support us and we support the Pantry.

"We’ve also got a community garden we’re just about to refurbish, we’re going to invite local community individuals to use it.

“I think mental health has been a big thing over the last two years with Covid, there are a lot of people who don’t have a back garden and I think it’s something we’re really passionate about doing.

"We’ve done numerous other activities, including supporting the Beatson which I think is close to everyone’s heart in Glasgow.

“Beatson, the Scottish Hospice and the Scottish Children’s Hospital, who come in every Christmas, are charities we very much support.

David Pierotti, general manager of Silverburn (Image: newsquest)

“But there are also just wee simple things like taking the weans to the panto. We pay for the bus, we pay for their panto and it’s something we’ve done for 15 years.

“It’s quite poignant and proud for me, who opened the shopping centre, to communicate everything my team have done in the last 15 years and that’s why we thought this award was perfect for us.”

Covid has, of course, had a big impact on retail over the past two years and Silverburn is no different - but David insists the crisis could represent an opportunity.

He explained: "It was hellish. It was really, really difficult.

“But what it has made us do is reinvent ourselves as a destination as opposed to a shopping centre, and treating our customers more as guests.

“I think it’s changed our attitude, we appreciate our freedoms more but people’s shopping habits have changed and what we’re trying to do is focus more on food, beverage, leisure and entertainment.

“That will be coming soon, there are numerous activities we’re looking at doing coming up to Christmas.

David Pierotti, general manager of Silverburn

“We’re looking at collaborating with Glasgow Children’s Hospital with potentially a free Santa. We’re looking at numerous activities such as a big ferris wheel going into one of our car parks, we’re anticipating slightly less footfall so we’re going to try and re-purpose the space to make it entertaining for customers to want to come.

“For Halloween, we’ll have the Spooktacular event which will be in one of our car parks."

Since it was opened Silverburn has been focused on limiting its environmental impact, and the centre is looking to be net positive on carbon, water use and resource use by 2030.

David said: "We're looking at brown water recycling, when you’re looking at an 85-acre site you’re looking at potentially re-using rainwater. Coffee granules we’re taking from retailers and regenerating them to be used as compost.

“The other ones we’re looking at is basically landscaping, looking at trees, more planting, approaching the council with regard to revisiting roundabouts.

“There have been some really good examples in Scandinavia where they’ve been putting plants on it flat roundabouts to try and make it a little bit more interesting.

"We are very active with regard to our carbon footprint, we have a monthly energy meeting where we monitor electricity, gas, water and waste.

“Morally it’s the right thing to do but it makes sense morally on a cost front, because we’re responsible and the costs incurred on waste are paid for by the retailer so we want to keep those costs as low as possible, especially in the current climate which is going to be quite a struggle.

“We’re a naturally ventilated shopping centre, we’ve got air vents up and down the mall with the glass ports that open up.

“We’ve done numerous different measures to be more sustainable, we’ve got a burn that runs the whole way around the mall, from the back of the centre right round our 85 acre estate which is classed as a wildlife park."

The winner of The Glasgow Times Award for Glasgow's Favourite Business will be revealed at the annual Glasgow Business Awards ceremony, taking place at the DoubleTree by Hilton Glasgow Central on Thursday 6 October 2022, with voting opening on Friday September 2.

Place your vote for The Glasgow Times Award for Glasgow's Favourite Business here.