Rutherglen Shopping Centre

Not the worst shopping centre I have ever been to… but not the best either. It’s now known as ‘Rutherglen Exchange Shopping Centre’. Situated on the Main Street, it’s pretty much in the heart of Rutherglen and when you walk round from the train station onto the Main Street, it’s one of the first things you see.
It’s okay… I mean it’s handy if I need to pop in for something so I can appreciate the convenience. There’s a Superdrug, Home Bargains, Farmfoods, Card Factory, Peacocks, a butchers and a couple of others that I’ve never visited so they don’t stick out in my mind. There is also an open plan coffee shop as well as a Greggs and a Subway. Not a bad selection — some of these are pretty convenient. Oh, there is also an amusement arcade for over 18’s or 21’s.
Obviously not being the largest shopping centre (and I sometimes question whether it deserve the title ‘shopping centre’), it is harder to avoid the sales people offering to save you money on your electricity or offer you a credit card (I personally don’t give them the time of day but it’s impossible to walk around without hearing them!). It’s always clean and tidy but it’s very much a centre I like to be in and out of — never visited the coffee shop though it always seems to be busy. A lot of elderly visitors/​parents with their young children tend to visit (and I’m seriously not child friendly) but I’m not going to hold that against the centre — the shops are for everyone (I need to remind myself that the next time I hear a screaming kid, haha!)
I don’t love this shopping centre but I don’t hate it either (though if I was a good shopping experience I’d rather make the effort to go into town) and I really think with some of the shops they have opened, they are trying to improve the centre and offer more. The Home Bargains, Superdrug and Card Factory are shops that I visit when I need to pick up a few bits and don’t have the time/can’t be bothered going into town/​elsewhere. The butchers is also pretty good too — they have a nice selection.
I’ll need to get some photos next time I pop in because they deserve an update — it’s not that bad!

I’ll find myself in Rutherglen Shopping Centre on several occasions when I’m back home:
— Cutting through on the walk back from the train station to steal some warmth during the cold winter months.
–Erm…
–Let me see…
–Nope, nothing…
The other reviewers sum it up and, since the reviews dated as far back as 2010, not all that much has changed. — It’s just not somewhere I’d visit, especially considering that I can get to Glasgow central in just 7 minutes by train.
Unfortunately, I’m going to have to follow suit with another 2-​star review.

Definitely not a shopping centre. Although it has been refurbished its still a s****hole. What you can expect is a whole lot of cheap stores, closed down units as rent is too expensive and a lot of oldies, jakies and screaming wains strolling down the aislies of the busiest shop in the arcade — home bargains.
If it wasn’t for greggs, home bargains and superdrug then the place would have closed down along time ago.
Overall, if u love a bargain and ur a young man out to grab a granny then this is the place to be.

Rutherglen Shopping Centre is barely a shopping centre. Instead it is a run down collection of cheap shops which happen to be under the same roof.
Bang in the centre of Rutherglen, it proves just how tired this town is these days. I imagine the people who live here who have a bit more money do their shopping outside the area.

Rutherglen Shopping centre is certainly not a Braehead or a Silverburn. Or even a Forge or a Clydebank. Or even an East Kilbride… okay you get the picture. Rutherglen Shopping Centre is hardly a shopping centre at all. It’s more a collection of cheap and nasty shops plonked in the same building.
It makes up a very run down high street in a town which is in serious need of some regeneration.