‘Breeding ground for rats’ clinches grimmest town title for Linwood

A RENFREWSHIRE town has been named Scotland’s most dismal on account of its “health and safety hazard” shopping centre, condemned as a “breeding ground for rats”.

Linwood was handed the Carbuncle Award for 2011 after judges were shocked at the decrepit state of its pedestrian shopping area.

The town has been left in state of limbo for several years while Tesco decides whether or not it will redevelop the area, despite repeated assertions by the supermarket giant that it will build a new store and community facilities.

Awarding Linwood the “Plook on a Plinth” trophy, the judges noted that such is the extent of Linwood’s decline that a statue representing hope rising from adversity has had to be removed after vandals hacked pieces off it for scrap.

They also described the area around the shopping centre as a “health and safety hazard with numerous open manhole covers, unsecured buildings and an absence of proper refuse collection creating a breeding ground for rats”.

Urban Realm editor and spokesman for the Carbuncle Awards, John Glenday, said: “It’s been three months of trudging around some of the countries darkest corners, but, in the end, judging for the 2011 Carbuncle Awards didn’t prove too challenging – Linwood’s plight was simply too great to ignore.

“Scotland’s first shopping centre is also its worst, leaving Linwood as a town without a heart – but it isn’t a lost cause.

“It could be turned around and turned around quite quickly. To do so, however, requires action, it is in this spirit as a catalyst for change that Linwood has been awarded the 2012 Carbuncle award.”

The Carbuncle awards were established in 2000 as a humorous response to the prestigious Stirling Prize for architecture, highlighting poor town planning and architectural design.

The award was to be handed over to local residents in a special ceremony today next to the shopping centre’s Christmas tree.

Linwood beat the Highland towns of Fort William and Nairn to take the title, the former described as being “strangled by a concrete collar”, while the latter was said to have been the victim of “decades of poor planning, official indecision, developer greed and bad design”.

Local resident Tom Burke, founder of the Linwood Sucks website, said: “I’ve spent the best part of four years in Iraq and thinking of some of the positive reconstruction work that’s taken place there, it’s actually better than this.”

But Geoff Crowley, of local business Highland Galvanizers, said that the state of the town centre obscured its strengths.

He said: “You see lots of examples of pride in the community despite these problems – flowers in the garden, clipped hedges – that’s a good base to start with and try and draw back to a more acceptable situation. There are a lot of people who have pride in this community.”

Iain Nicolson, convener of Renfrewshire Council’s planning and economic policy development board, said: “It’s rather ironic that Linwood has been given this award just at the time when there are major projects under way to improve the area’s environment and economic prospects.

“Linwood has always had a strong sense of community and that is helping to drive forward renewal. The much maligned shopping centre is being replaced.”