Cumbernauld is North Lanarkshire's largest town. It now has an opportunity to redefine itself as a '21st Century new town' and further develop its commercial, industrial and retail role as a sustainable, green and low-carbon regional hub.

The Vision will be built around a transformed low-carbon town centre defining Cumbernauld as a hub for services, education, shopping and leisure, expressed by a new restructured mixed-use centre situated within a greenspace and parkland setting that supports active travel and leisure.

The town centre will become a vibrant, mixed-use, welcoming, safe and resilient place where people are supported at all stages of their lives, where they can live and socialise and where businesses can thrive.

A Low-2-Zero carbon hub

Cumbernauld is a key hub and regional centre. Its infrastructure makes it a key investment location for commercial, industrial and regional services. With a regional cluster of commercial, employment, learning and health facilities, Cumbernauld is well placed to grow on the back of its new Town Hub and reinvestment in its housing stock and town centre living. 

Attractive and appealing sense of place

Redeveloping the town centre will create a centre, appropriate for a new age, based on a low-carbon, people-centric place model. The vision seeks to deliver a mixed-use activity combining retail, leisure and services, a new central square, a redeveloped Health Centre and public transport hub that will drive a new sense of place and community ownership.

Supporting a stronger community

The outcomes for the community will be a centre which is more attractive, safer, easier to get around, that offers wider choices meeting both local and regional needs. New homes, new jobs and better connections (physical and digital) will drive additional demand for services and support a more vibrant and active centre.

Cumbernauld's opportunities

Town centres are facing a range of opportunities and challenges as community needs and the way we use our centres change. Cumbernauld needs to adapt and strengthen its future role based on quality of place, low-carbon living and reinvestment as a regional hub. The core projects involve:

• Developing a Pilot for Low-2-Zero carbon living
• Develop a new Town Hub.
• Re-structure the town centre on a stronger more compact Mixed-Use Model.
• Integrate within the centre - learning, health and leisure activity.
• Develop a grid of streets, squares and spaces and connected paths and cycleways.
• Connect town centre activity and services with new and existing housing.
• Develop a new town square and civic event space.

Our proposals for Cumbernauld

Central to the Town Vision is the potential creation of a multi-purpose town hub which will become the lifeblood of communities and be a constant in people’s lives. The town hub will provide a range of services including education, leisure, public services, commercial opportunities and flexible workspaces, bringing communities closer in one central area.

We have created some initial space concept design visuals as a way of exploring what the revitalised town centre could look like. These concepts are only illustrative so you can get a feel for what a mixed-use neighbourhood could look like on land size available within the town centre and what it could entail. But remember that any final proposals will be subject to extensive consultation with the people who will use the town centre. We believe that the future of Cumbernauld town centre should be shaped by the people who will use and rely on it.