Blantyre Town Centre: a new direction
We were commissioned by South Lanarkshire Council on behalf of the Blantyre and North Hamilton Social Inclusion Partnership with Kevin Murray Associates to provide an appraisal of Blantyre Town Centre. The aims of the project were to:
- set a new direction for the centre of Blantyre;
- provide an imaginative, realistic and implementable framework, which will bridge the gap between current and emerging policies, existing and emerging development proposals for individual sites, in order to guide change in Blantyre over the next few years;
- demonstrate that a comprehensive framework can achieve wider benefits for both the overall quality of Blantyre town centre and have these clearly related to the aspirations of community stakeholders;
- secure the support of key landowners occupiers and community representatives; and
- identify a range of potential streetscape and environmental improvement opportunities, contributing to the economy and overall quality of life of Blantyre
Summary of challenges
A number of obstacles are inhibiting progressing towards a vital, sustainable centre. These include:
- a negative image, lacking a distinctive sense of place, particularly around the Clydeview Centre and the Glasgow Road at that point;
- an outdated and underwhelming townscape;
- a need to improve both hard and soft spaces of the public realm;;
- the need to address better integrated delivery of development, public realm and transport/parking outputs
What is required is to help overcome these obstacles is a clear and positive vision of where Blantyre town centre should be going over the next 10 to 15 years, and how it should go about getting there. This needs to address the issues identified from the research and community consultations. Importantly, it should:
- be positive and aspirational, aiming to equip Blantyre town centre for the challenges of this new century
- make a real difference, in terms of the image and composition of the town centre
- be credible, in the type of projects which the community can support and have confidence will be delivered
- be attractive, in drawing people, retail activity, businesses and investment
- be deliverable, from a technical and funding point of view, and
- be positively integrated in its thinking, so the outcome is more than just the sum of the constituent parts
Blantyre Proposals
