North Lanarkshire Council said local people are at the heart of its ambitious vision and regeneration plans that will radically change eight town centres and how people live in them, create multi-million-pound mixed-use town and community hubs, and remodel three country parks.

The scale of the place-based investment has continued at pace over the last year and also finances wider community projects including essential infrastructure, the digital economy and connectivity and new-build housing, while maintaining current homes, buildings and facilities.

Councillor Jim Logue, leader of North Lanarkshire Council, said: “Over the next five years, we are investing £1.2bn in creating town and community hubs, in our country parks, and in essential infrastructure and housing to help create a sustainable future for town centres that will benefit people and communities across North Lanarkshire.

“The draft visions for our town centres bring a tangible reality to the outline concepts and these will be developed with our communities, for our communities, so that we are creating vibrant, safe, resilient places where people are supported at all stages of their life and businesses can thrive.”

Central to the council’s plans is the creation of multi-purpose town and community hubs which will become the lifeblood of communities and be a constant in people’s lives.

The town hubs and smaller, complementary community hubs will provide a range of services including education, leisure, public services, commercial opportunities and flexible workspaces, bringing communities closer in one central space.

Over the last six months, nearly 3500 people have responded to consultations, giving their preferred location for the nine town hubs through consultation events and these results and their feasibility will be discussed at the nine forthcoming Community Board meetings, together with prioritising community hub projects.

70% of residents largely supported the draft visions to create sustainable futures for eight town centres. There was clear recognition of the decline of retail and the benefits of more town-centre based residential development. Individual Town Action Plans will be developed through future Community Boards, which will also review final town visions and investment priorities for each town.

Progress has also been made on the ten-year delivery plan to make parks and greenspaces more accessible, active and vibrant, bringing enormous physical and mental health benefits to people.