On December 9 1955, Cumbernauld was officially designated as one of Scotland’s New Towns, an ambitious post-war experiment intended to reshape how people lived, worked, and moved. Seventy years on, the town centre stands on the edge of demolition, poised to vanish from the skyline that defined generations.
This is both a record of that history and a personal reflection. For all the criticism the town has received, sometimes loud, sometimes lazy, I have always felt something very different standing in those concrete walkways.
I have seen the ambition, the ideas, the optimism embedded in the structure. What some call an eyesore, I see as a piece of architectural bravery that has been left to decay rather than cared for. Its faults were not inevitable; they were the product of neglect, not design.
This is the story of Cumbernauld at 70, told with affection for a place many misunderstood.
What Existed Before the Vision?
Before the planners drew their first lines, Cumbernauld was a significant location for the handloom weaving industry in the late 1700s. A quiet Lanarkshire village. Stone cottages, modest shops, fields rolling out in every direction.
It was picturesque, but it was not destined for anonymity. The landscape on the hill, exposed and open, had room for reinvention.
Knowing what would eventually rise here makes these early scenes feel like prologues: quiet moments before modernity arrived.
1955: A New Town Declared, A New Future Promised
Cumbernauld was chosen to help relieve Glasgow’s post-war overcrowding, but what followed was much more than an overspill solution. This was a place designed to embody confidence.
Compact, experimental, modern. It was never supposed to replicate existing towns; it was built to challenge them.
For all the later scepticism, it is impossible to look at the original plans without sensing optimism. The architecture wasn’t timid. It believed that life could be organised more intelligently than before.
That is the foundation the town centre grew from.
Building Neighbourhoods for Modern Life
From the late 1950s onward, families arrived to brand-new homes, green pathways, and neighbourhoods shaped with intention. Seafar, Kildrum, Abronhill, Condorrat: each district had its own character and community.
The pedestrian routes, bridges, and underpasses, now so often mocked, were once considered cutting-edge. They separated people from traffic, placed movement on different planes, and allowed children to roam without crossing busy roads.
In these early decades, the town was an active experiment. And for many residents, it worked.
The Town Centre Megastructure: Ambition in Concrete
The centre, opened in 1967 and expanded over time, remains the heart of why Cumbernauld is so distinctive. It was bold, not a traditional high street, but a multi-level urban hub designed to integrate everything a town needed under one roof.
People often criticise its concrete and complexity, but rarely acknowledge the scale of the idea. This was a deliberate break from the ordinary. It was built to be weatherproof, efficient, and communal. It was built for the future.
I’ve always felt that the centre’s biggest flaw wasn’t in its architecture; it was in how it was treated. Buildings can age with dignity if they are maintained. Cumbernauld’s centre, instead, was left to absorb decades of under-investment, gradual decline, and commercial shifts far beyond its control.
Walking through it, even in its tired years, I never saw ugliness. I saw a structure that had carried the weight of a town’s changing fortunes without ever being given a chance to evolve.
Life Inside the Vision: The Human Side of the New Town
For many who grew up here, the centre was simply home: a place to meet friends, shop, work, go to the cinema, get the bus, buy school clothes, or wander through on a rainy afternoon. The architecture mattered, but so did the memories. The building was alive with movement and sound.
Even the quirks, the ramps, the echoes, the unexpected turns, became part of the town’s emotional geography. This was not a neutral structure. It had personality.
Palacerigg: A Constant on the Hill
While the town centre came to symbolise Cumbernauld’s ambition in concrete, another part of the town was shaping its identity in a very different way.
Palacerigg Country Park opened in 1974, offering Cumbernauld a different kind of space – open land, quiet paths, and space above the town to breathe. It became a place people returned to, year after year.
The visitor centre is marked by a mural painted by Alasdair Gray at the time of opening. The artwork is now protected, and the building listed, recognising Palacerigg’s cultural as well as environmental value.
The park itself was shaped by David Stephen, a conservationist from Airdrie who believed nature should be accessible, shared, and lived in.
For many families, Palacerigg is a fond memory. Easter was always the high point with the welcoming of new baby animals, others remember Halloween ghost walks, or Christmas visits to the reindeer and Santa’s grotto.
These moments made the park part of the rhythm of the town.
Where the town centre embodied ambition in concrete, Palacerigg represents continuity. Together, they reflect a town shaped not only by planning, but by the places people return to.
Decline and Criticism
By the late 20th century, retail patterns were shifting across the UK. Large indoor shopping centres everywhere felt the impact, and Cumbernauld was no exception.
Rather than adapt the building, decisions were deferred, repairs postponed, and investment redirected.
I have always believed that the hate was misplaced. The centre was never the problem. The absence of stewardship was.
Archives, Memory, and Re-Evaluation
Recent archival work has uncovered thousands of original documents from the Cumbernauld Development Corporation. These records reveal a town built on thoughtful design and humanistic principles. They show how intentional, how carefully argued, how imaginative the project was.
Seeing these plans today only strengthens the sense that the centre deserved better care than it received.
For many locals, the town centre was never just a building. It was a place of routine and familiarity, where journeys began and ended, where weekends were spent, and where everyday life quietly unfolded.
One Cumbernauld resident reflects, “It was good to get out of the city and into a New Town that was close to the countryside. We knew this would be a better place to bring up our family. There was a good community spirit, because most people were in the same situation.
We made new friends – some of whom remain friends to this day.”
Demolition and Regeneration: The Last Days of the Centre
Regeneration is now underway. Fleming House is already gone, and the Centre itself has a limited future. In the same period, St Mungo’s Church suffered a devastating fire, another reminder of how quickly the landmarks that shape Cumbernauld’s identity can be altered or lost.
The damage underscored a sense of fragility around the town’s architectural heritage, arriving just as the centre itself prepares to disappear.
The replacement will be lower, more conventional, more aligned with modern retail and community needs. Many welcome this change. Many have waited for it.
But for those of us who loved the original centre, this moment is bittersweet. A radical piece of Scottish modernism is disappearing, not because it failed, but because it wasn’t supported long enough to adapt.
Buildings, like people, age differently depending on how they’re treated.
Cumbernauld at 70: What Remains
Seventy years on, Cumbernauld is still a living conversation about planning, identity, and change. The new developments will bring opportunities, new public spaces, and a fresh definition of the town’s heart.
But as we move into that future, it’s worth remembering that the centre was never simply concrete. It was optimism in structural form. It was an experiment in better living, and it was a place that held memories for tens of thousands of people.
Even in decline, I saw beauty in it because I saw the intention behind it.
This is, in part, a farewell to that.
