"One thing that’s forgotten is the tremendous pressure caused by the need to rehouse Glasgows’ population: in fact Glasgow became the only city in the world to attempt to solve its problems by depopulating itself. The Cumbernauld Development Corporation got a per-capita for every glasgow citizen they rehoused."

Derek Lyddon was planner for the South Side area: Carbrain, Kildrum. After Cumbernauld he went on to Skelmersdale New Town, and on to the Scottish Office.

You don't like the word Brutalism?
What might be termed brutalism was really trying to do the best with the money available. We were very very short; the government said ”Your doorhandles are far too expensive”, for example. "They’ve all got to be plastic." There was a very strict area definition per house. The Parker Morris report defined the formula for size per person, and for the first time it defined minimum standards, a space for the pram and so on . We worked between that and the cost limits which the government set. We did the best we could there, and then some outside people came in and said ‘that’s brutalism’ because you had flat roofs..there was scarcely any money available to do anything else. So you could say brutal but you could equally easily use the old fashioned phrase ‘functional’. As simple as that.
Structure of the team?
Sir Hugh Wilson was appointed by the Scottish Office, then he selected further recruitment and what he wasalways looking for was multi-professional teams. A town centre team, a Northside team under Roy Hunter, a Southside team which included me, and in each team there was architect, architect/planner, engineer, and landscape. You could always tell when the multi-teams were together because you could go onsite and they’d all be criticising each other- about flooding on the road or whatever- all interleaving in inquiry…. This was a positive reinforcement. There were no pure planners- not until Urlan Wannop. Lives in Helensburgh.
“ The impact of changed expectations” is a piece he wrote on the changes to the projected population, and the economic factors of the late 60s and early 70s.

Hugh Wilson never would have a master plan. He would have a preliminary report…
These images are from right at the beginning.

Hook New Town?
That’s one of my favourite stories actually…the Japanese came to us and they said they were interested in Cumbernauld, had a trip, and the tremendous model we had of the town. We asked if there was anything else they wanted, and they said, “we’d like to go and see Hook.” And Hugh Wilson said.
“Oh. Well, you see, Hook is only a book.”
And they said, “Oh really? We’ve already built it.”
What about the CDC restauraunt, places that can't be reached any more?

The expansion
The original designated area was to house far fewer people than the government wanted.
They wanted 60-70,000 and they only got 50, then they demanded a second wave. This meant going off the hilltop, Hugh Wilson would never have agreed to that…

Was the centre not going to be off the hilltop originally?
Right at the very beginning there was a possibility that it could have been down in the valley on the railway side, not the A80 side. That was still in the designated area, then it was decided that if you wanted to have a centre without neighbourhood centres- all the previous new towns had built to scale of neighbourhoods based on the secondary school/2 primary schools/shopping centre- this was the first new town to say no to that. Partly because of topography, there wasn't room to spread like that, partly to put a balance in. This was the first new town to plan for 100% use of the car, but 100% walking to the town centre.
Therefore it was placed in the centre and it so happened it was on top of the hill as well.

Cultural influences
It was a new approach based on “ the whole town as the neighbourhood”
The centre in walking distance, based fairly uniquely on all the pedestrian ways.
These footways complemented a road system that really did work well.
It was the right design for the site.
In the London new towns there was a time when they were getting a bad reputation, people were depressed, commuting and so on. A feeling that they wanted these places to be a bit more dense and a bit more lively. “ You should be within screaming distance of the next house”…and industrial areas close to housing. It used to say on the marriage vows, ‘ for better , for worse, but never for lunch.’..

The new towns were hit particularly hard by a certain kind of ‘inward investment’- arrive, hoover up the grants, then off again…
Coming into the 60s the idea grew that the new towns weren’t just overspill for the city, they were growth poles in the Central Belt. That was a very big change in approach.
No longer relying on overspill to build population but bringing in new factories and workplaces… this was picked up from the French.

High living:the penthouses
I remember Colin Cowan telling me that with the penthouses,when it came to the right to buy, they had to scrap them as dwellings altogether, because it would be so impractical to have private ownerships floating over the whole thing. They reverted to offices didn’t they?
So it wasn’t tightened fire regulations?
Well that’s what colin cowan said to me…

Absorption
So now the whole centre is run by a shopping centre group, and so you have a structure which was meant to be a civic centre in the widest sense, but it’s run like a mall…
I think there was a complete lack of understanding on the part of the administration as to the potential of the place. When the CDC folded, I think it went to the wrong local authority…
That may have been the tragedy- I think Cumbernauld looked much more to Falkirk and north.


Hugh Wilson ran the office very much as a non-stratified team, and after work we used to go to the pub in the village; very much a man for teamwork.
There was a book written about 50 monuments postwar developments in scotland. Seafar housing was labelled as one of the fifty developments… does that ring a bell?