Winner of the Carbuncle aware – most unloved town, as voted for by its own residents…
One of the last new towns in the UK. 10 years after Harlow, with the building of the Gorbals in Glasgow progressing too slowly, a further new town outside of Glasgow was designated. This was a different kind of new town, with a move towards greater compactness – the site was the smallest of any new town, but it was designed to have 3 times the population density of East Kilbride.
“Concentrating all town centre activities into one central megastructure was a response to previous criticism of new towns (1953 Architectural Review called them “terrifying eternity of wilderness, punctuated by seas of concrete”), and a chance to implement daring new concepts. Geoffrey Copcutt was main architect for this. Architectural Design 1963 had feature on it.
Whole plan was for a dramatic single building on crest of hill. Crazy in retrospect, multi-storey but open to elements, so like a wind tunnel. But massive amount of under building required, phase 1 ran behind schedule and over budget. Again, businesses reluctant to take on cost and risk, esp on upper levels. So instead of sticking with plan of car park below, shops above, development continued on ground level.
Little of Copcutt’s plan built as intended, many features left out, and much now demolished. Odd glimpses remain – ramps, bridges, stained glass. Were to be penthouses on top! Now mostly privately owned, so not much planners can do.
In 1967 won international award for community architecture, beating Stockholm and Tapiola, biggest award of any of the new towns.
Lots of people who worked on town continued to live there.
In 1967 road traffic accidents were 22% of national average, due to separation of cars and people. But underpasses became unpopular so later development preferred roundabouts.
Some housing poor quality, but Seafar won awards.