Scotlands Abandoned Designer Village

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.

[@virginiacave9888]

Beautiful ❤ Alison sent me and I have subscribed. Looking forward to all your content!!

[@scotlandfromabove2023]

Thankyou ❤️ There's already a lot of content on my channel from Castles, scenery, abandoned places to city centres a wide variety but all of Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[@RikAindow]

Great video. West Calder is beautiful and so is Livingston. I love the rural(ish) location of both and the whole new town movement of the 60s. I live in a new town of my own, Skelmersdale, but sadly it didnt get the investment needed to build up like Livingston did. Still, we have no traffic lights and it's pretty quiet here most nights. I can't imagine the Scottish winters being kind to visitors of the shopping village in your video, though.

[@mickeytheviewmoo]

Great views

[@scotlandfromabove2023]

Thankyou 😊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[@AlisonRussellsCrochetChannel]

Such a huge waste of money at the time it was only open 3 years or so but Heck it was wind swept and horrible in winter

[@scotlandfromabove2023]

£30mil to build and opened in 1996 and closed 2004. After the centre in Livi opened in 2000 Freeport lost pretty much all custom. I had never been but already a few folk have mentioned how cold it was with the wind tunnel design.

[@mohamad-q3u5e]

حبذا ارفاق الفيديو بشرح مختصر عن المكان. شكرا سلفا

[@scotlandfromabove2023]

If you click on the video there's a description there 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[@DaveCollierCamping]

Amazing views. New friend here.

[@scotlandfromabove2023]

Appreciate it mate 💙🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[@bigmeltie1]

Lovely view of thr bings there.

[@clairehunter3508]

Me and my mate Sean walked all the way from Blackburn to Freeport to ask for a job, we both got taken on there and then at the Pizza Parlour, was my first “proper paid job” as we were on the YTS (showing my age 😂) at the time.

[@johnnymac26]

sub no.199..great footage mate

[@scotlandfromabove2023]

Thankyou very much, really appreciate it. There will be a lot more footage to come 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[@shaunjones95]

Is there security at this site?

[@scotlandfromabove2023]

@shaunjones95 yeah security are there all the time and from what I've heard from other folk going they are on the ball so you don't get long before they're on you 🫶🏼🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[@shaunjones95]

@@scotlandfromabove2023 I’d love to get some footage on my dji neo! Test out the camera etc ❤️

[@scotlandfromabove2023]

@shaunjones95 take off from outside on the road either at the entrance or walk along till there's a clear spot after the trees. If your local and looking for somewhere interesting to fly, check out Bangour Village. There's building work on one side but you can still walk around the side with the church just enter from Dechmont. Buildings are sealed off and security on site but your still allowed to walk around. It's very peaceful and great place to get used to a drone. Open space with all the buildings that are great to photograph 🫶🏼🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[@TheCatlady63]

So was this abandoned or is it being re fitted as there was some activity there.

[@scotlandfromabove2023]

It's only security on site now. The designer outlet closed in 2004 and apart from BBC filming as far as I'm aware there's not been anything else maybe a short period where used for airsoft but nothing substantial. Its such a waste

[@Auldgit67]

Need to put some information on video,, even though it was good to watch,, I had no clue of where, what or why it was abandoned.

[@granthardy3550]

Maybe a haphazard, home knitted vibe would have greater appeal rather than the branded indifference we all succumb to.

[@raisagorbachov]

There seem a lot of vehicles there for it to be abandoned.

[@scotlandfromabove2023]

Yeah it looks like there's some taxis being stored there. Some vans I seen look like they've been left there for some time aswell. There was a black car which was security. Near the end he drives into the site

[@raisagorbachov]

I wonder what else that site could be used for. Aren;t there some uninhabited villages/towns built for the oil boom in the 70s that were never inhabited? Those might make an interesting video.

[@scotlandfromabove2023]

@Zephod Beeblebrox from what I've read and been told in comments on Facebook its getting knocked down and houses built. When though I've no idea if it is even in the pipeline. Oh those sound interesting, I was actually just looking at "Scotlands Chernobyl" in Glasgow so that's on my list. Do you know where these villages are? I'll need to have a look 👀👌🏼

[@raisagorbachov]

@@scotlandfromabove2023 All I can say is they were coastal from memory and the BBC did something about them 20/30 years ago. I'm pretty ancient (56) so I remember stuff like that. I think they built a town or two for a port that never got built.

[@scotlandfromabove2023]

@Zephod Beeblebrox 56 isn't ancient just experienced. I'm going to try and spend some time looking these up as this is very interesting and different from places folk would usually visit and film. I thought that yesterday at an abandoned Priory but it was very busy including about 4 or 5 people waiting to fly their drone so places that aren't popular to go but great to see so I'll definitely be searching and adding to the list of places to go 😊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[@sandramenzies4401]

A real ill conceived plan middle of nowhere rubbish weather demographic not capable of buying designer goods