October 5 2020

North Lanarkshire Council is inviting members of the public to have their say on a decade-long town hub investment plan two years on from first announcing its vision.

The local authority has earmarked £3.5bn to upgrade existing urban centres at Airdrie, Bellshill, Coatbridge, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth, Motherwell, Shotts and Wishaw as part of its 'One Place, One Plan' vision.

Priorities include replacement of all schools which haven't been replaced or remodelled since 1996, replacement of tower blocks with low-rise homes and provision of new community and commercial facilities.

Design concepts produced by Norr and Ironside Farrar seek to address challenges facing these areas brought on by the collapse of retail, prompting efforts to pursue mixed-use spaces, new homes and refurbishment.

Council depute leader Paul Kelly said: "We want people in our communities to be able to access modern amenities and services from quality facilities within their towns.

"We have already made significant progress in working towards this vision and much work is already underway with the development of our town hubs being a crucial part of these plans. This vision will transform and reinvigorate our towns and bring substantial benefits across North Lanarkshire and to our people."

Just 1,473 of 150,000 homes in the local authority area are situated in town centres, over half of which were built before 1919, prompting a renewed focus on these areas amid annual population decline of 0.1%. 

6 Comments

#1 Posted by Graeme McCormick on 6 Oct 2020 at 14:36 PM

I hope the illustrations are not indicative of what's proposed. Just looks like cheap warehousing

#2 Posted by Teddy brown on 6 Oct 2020 at 16:20 PM

Dont like architectural design, because having plants in it if all i can see are plants which would be ruined because no one appreciates a nice town centre, use it for dumping rubbish and cigarette ends. No wonder it was designated with the plook on plinth award.

#3 Posted by 90 Scarlet on 6 Oct 2020 at 18:41 PM

If the schools need replaced after 24 years how long will this cheap looking town centre last. I think definitely not as long as the existing buildings. The council would get on better spending the money on the services that they keep reducing and not spending our money on vanity projects like this. Stop it now and save the council tax payers money. I would also like to know how much money has been wasted on this already.

#4 Posted by Andrew Patton on 6 Oct 2020 at 21:34 PM

God they can't look after the stock they have,
the common closes in the flats in North Lodge are in an
abominable mess, I can provide pictures, yet their going to demolish towers that have fantastic amounts spent on keeping them functional, yet leave other older housing stock common closes in an absolute mess, get your house in order NLC.

#5 Posted by Brandwagon on 7 Oct 2020 at 07:12 AM

Town centre ‘hub’.....language straight out of a PFI think tank sesh.
The quality of the sketches, vision and architectural approach is utter rank. Looks like a 1990s business park....not a town centre. Sorry, hub.

#6 Posted by Robin B's Discount on 7 Oct 2020 at 13:43 PM

People talk of PFI as a bad thing. We are now starting to see some of the benefits of the much maligned procurement model, with the first batches being handed back to councils and NHS in great condition.

Heck - compare the condition of a 5 year old hub school with a 20 year old PFI school and tell me there were no benefits!

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