“SAUCHIEHALL Street is open for business,” says the sign on the cordon on Renfield Street as it crosses Glasgow’s most famous thoroughfare.

As demolition work continued after the nightclub fire in March, requiring extensive pedestrian and traffic detours, this proclamation seemed merely laughable. Now, however, following last weekend’s catastrophic blaze at Glasgow School of Art, resulting in a second major exclusion zone, it is downright lamentable.

To be blunt, Sauchiehall Street looks like the zombie apocalypse. Getting around is a nightmare, and the more you see of the devastation, the more dispirited you feel. As tourists gawp in disbelief, taking pictures on their phones, commuters just put their heads down and speed up, fleeing the scene as quickly as possible.

The shell of the fire-ravaged Mackintosh building remains dangerous, and thus public safety is rightly the first priority of the authorities; clearly, the current cordon is going nowhere fast. I can’t imagine what it’s like for the residents and businesses whose lives have stood still since the fire and who still have no idea when they will get access to their properties .

At the same time, however, Glasgow City Council must be very careful that public statements reiterating the presence of the exclusion zone do not accidentally kill off remaining signs of life in the areas just outside it.

The current message appears to be the following: stay away from Sauchiehall Street. If we do this for too long, however, this much-loved, much maligned mile and a half will be doomed. Make no mistake, this latest fire is not only a calamity, but potentially the death blow in a cruel ongoing beating that has been afflicted upon this part of the city centre for at least a generation.

Look back at the history of post-war urban planning in Glasgow – including some recent decisions - and it does not fill one with hope. But that’s exactly why it is imperative that the Council, businesses, planning experts, universities, heritage organisations and the people of this city now come together and commit themselves to finally giving Sauchiehall Street the new start it has both needed and deserved for 30 years.

A number of different but complimentary strategies must be fed into a bigger masterplan if the affected businesses are to be saved in the short term, allowing meaningful economic activity to continue while restoration and rebuilding goes on in the medium term, eventually encouraging a more prosperous and secure long-term future for the street and the neighbourhoods that surround it.

And this work needs to start right here, right now. Glasgow City Council is expected to give rates relief to businesses within the exclusion zone, a move that is sure to be welcomed. But I join with residents, businesses and retailers large and small in calling for the authorities to do more to stem the immediate damage while a wider debate takes place on shaping the future.

With so many shop units and buildings currently lying empty elsewhere in the city centre, surely these could be opened up to offer temporary premises for businesses in the exclusion zone? Could resilience funding provided by the Scottish Government also prevent these small cafes and shops from folding in the weeks ahead?

Elsewhere, council licensing rules could and should be relaxed so businesses and creatives can make the most of the areas that are still accessible. Take the pedestrian sections near Buchanan Galleries and from Marks and Spencer west. What about holding a pop-up food and vintage market at weekends, perhaps with live music? Maybe artists – and there are certainly no shortage of those in Glasgow - could be funded to paint murals and create engaging installations? Perhaps all this could be even done as part of a wider Sauchiehall Street festival?

Rather than discouraging folk from coming to the area, we should be welcoming them with open arms, whether they are commuters, shoppers, students or tourists, encouraging them to spend their money in the businesses that are open, linking up with and protecting the thriving night-time economy at the Charing Cross end of the street, the bars, clubs and restaurants that have always been such a magnet for pleasure-seekers.

Those of us who live and work in Glasgow must play our part. Rather than turning away from the devastation, we should face up to it and make a point of spending more time and money in the bits that remain open.

Make no mistake, there are years of disruption and expense ahead, on top of the frustration of disruption and expense we’ve already endured. But I hope we will one day look back and see these terrible fires as the catalyst to the transformational refurbishment and repurposing of Sauchiehall Street and its environs that followed.

As I have said previously, the Mack should and must be rebuilt. But so, too, should a new future for Sauchiehall Street. The alternative is simply too awful to contemplate. So, let’s get on with it.