Craigleith Retail Park

This is very much a purpose built place as far as I am concerned. I do not understand the concept of ‘retail parks’ with separate buildings in an area large enough that you’d need to drive form one end to the other to get to a store. Why not have a mall, or a shopping centre? Then I’d be warm and cosy and probably more inclined to spend money on trivial things whilst I mosey around. Basically my point is: I do not like this layout.
A good amount of parking space available, though I would keep an eye out for those in a rush who appear to have little regard for the lives of others on the road.
There is very little reason why I would ever need to come here and don’t anticipate making this a regular thing, but given it’s proximity to my home and my need for instant gratification this place will do the trick if I’m desperate
There’s also a KFC on site with fried chicken being my hangover food. That’s probably the only reason I’d ever need to return.

Have you ever thought to yourself: Gosh, I really want to go somewhere where I can get lost in giant spaces, ignored by retail employees and take on the graceful pallor of a zombie under harsh florescent lighting…
TA DAAAA!
This «park» is a collection of big box stores — M&S, Boots, Sainsbury’s, Homebase, Argos, KFC… you get the idea.
Musings:
1. I have never seen so many big buildings in one place in Edinburgh. Honest to gosh, it’s like each store is having a «my store is bigger than your store» battle… half of them don’t even need the space they have.
2. I’m amazed that I had NO idea this existed, even though it’s a short hop, skip and a jump from my house and i’m oddly proud of that.
3. Everyone who works here is angry at the world… except in Costa… probably because of the caffeine.
4. I generally dislike places like these — I think they are big ol’ eyesores and 10x larger than they need to be BUT I begrudgingly admit that it’s handy to have some of these places lumped together for big event buys.
5. Especially the giant discount dollar store… I like that one… my soul dies a little just typing that.
I don’t like big stores or crowds in general (read my review of Primark… it’s a theme) and I want to give this 1 – 2 stars, but all of my cranky comments aside, I did grab a much needed iphone cord, tracked down an obscure event prop and caffeinated myself while here… so it has its uses.