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Stuff to do in & around Falkirk

Actually Danny if you could just keep Scotland in the 1980s or at least stop time moving forward any more that would be great, ta. Last visit I found out Greggs had stopped selling macaroni pies, just now walked past Mario's on Byres Road twice coz it's changed its name, I mean fucksake :mad:
 
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I very briefly lived in Falkirk in the late 90s. I learnt today that Falkirk football club has a new out of town stadium as I could watch the matches in their old ground from the flat I stayed in. I ended up moving to Stirling very quickly and my only Falkirk memory is very decent mushroom pakoras from the curry house on the main road by Asda :thumbs:
 
I was at the first ever football match at the new Falkirk stadium. Falkirk featuring the genius Trinidadian Russell Latapy yawned their way through a 4-0 win over Montrose who seemed largely to consist of sixteen year old schoolboys and whatever guff from the juniors the manager had found down the back of his sofa, during the close season. Bainsford, around the Shire's old ground, now a derelict ruin, was pretty grim. Falkirk seems to be an archipelago of half finished areas; weird sandstone terraces butting up against grey non-place industrial estates/ retial parks built on top of sites where people used to make things.

Cumbernauld I have a bit more time for, having friends there. It's a byword for the worst of sixties planning but it's not a bad place, Condorrat aside. New towns are weird, the naive aspiration towards a better future, that nobody imagined exisiting in today's grim present.
 
I went to Falkirk once for work about 15 years ago. I don't remember anything about it except for my first impression of the hotel, which was in the centre of town, such as it was. I checked in and went to the room they'd given me the key for, like you do. When I opened the door the first thing I noticed was the reek of fag smoke, then I saw a pair of shoes on the floor and then a porn mag open on a table. 'Something's up here' I thought and went back to reception. Sure enough they'd given me the key to someone else's room.
 
steeplejack said:
Cumbernauld I have a bit more time for, having friends there. It's a byword for the worst of sixties planning but it's not a bad place, Condorrat aside. New towns are weird, the naive aspiration towards a better future, that nobody imagined exisiting in today's grim present.
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IMO, Cumbernauld takes too much flack on that account. In many ways, it represented the very best of the era's planning concepts/intentions - Of course there were flaws, poor quality system building in particular but many traditional communities in Scotland also suffered but the separation of people and cars, making it fully viable for public transport/foot/bike access throughout is of particular relevance today. The much maligned "centre" was planned to be a populated community in its own right and was amongst the first places to be planned with full disabled access but construction was halted after only about a third was built, then the cuts to/marginalisation of the new town development companies in the Tory years of the 1980s and their eventual disbanding under the Major government saw an entirely different planning ethos foisted on the place, which let-in the big commercial house builders to do whatever they liked and haphazard retail/business park planning that broke the place-up further.
 
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pogofish said:
IMO, Cumbernauld takes too much flack on that account. In many ways, it represented the very best of the era's planning concepts/intentions - Of course there were flaws, poor quality system building in particular but many traditional communities in Scotland also suffered but the separation of people and cars, making it fully viable for public transport/foot/bike access throughout is of particular relevance today. The much maligned "centre" was planned to be a populated community in its own right and was amongst the first places to be planned with full disabled access but construction was halted after only about a third was built, then the cuts to/marginalisation of the new town development companies in the Tory years of the 1980s and their eventual disbanding under the Major government saw an entirely different planning ethos foisted on the place, which let-in the big commercial house builders to do whatever they liked and haphazard retail/business park planning that broke the place-up further.
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True of many new towns- the work done in Milton Keynes was visionary in the 1970s and ruined later by Tory disinvestment. The same could also be said of Basildon which looked marvellous in the mid 70s but a dysfunctional free for all now.

Glenrothes is also not too bad, the corporation actual appointed a town artist in the early days and I had a good day earlier in the year visiting many of the sculptures that are left. The original town artist was the legendary David Harding who went on to shape many international artists at Glasgow School of Art in the 80s and 90s.
 
steeplejack said:
I was at the first ever football match at the new Falkirk stadium. Falkirk featuring the genius Trinidadian Russell Latapy yawned their way through a 4-0 win over Montrose who seemed largely to consist of sixteen year old schoolboys and whatever guff from the juniors the manager had found down the back of his sofa, during the close season.
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Funnily enough I was at the last ever match at Brockville.

Also, I've just remembered I was born in Falkirk.
 
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steeplejack said:
True of many new towns- the work done in Milton Keynes was visionary in the 1970s and ruined later by Tory disinvestment. The same could also be said of Basildon which looked marvellous in the mid 70s but a dysfunctional free for all now.

Glenrothes is also not too bad, the corporation actual appointed a town artist in the early days and I had a good day earlier in the year visiting many of the sculptures that are left. The original town artist was the legendary David Harding who went on to shape many international artists at Glasgow School of Art in the 80s and 90s.
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Glenrothes is awful! Although I do love the hippos.
 
steeplejack said:
True of many new towns- the work done in Milton Keynes was visionary in the 1970s and ruined later by Tory disinvestment. The same could also be said of Basildon which looked marvellous in the mid 70s but a dysfunctional free for all now.

Glenrothes is also not too bad, the corporation actual appointed a town artist in the early days and I had a good day earlier in the year visiting many of the sculptures that are left. The original town artist was the legendary David Harding who went on to shape many international artists at Glasgow School of Art in the 80s and 90s.
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Indeed, although as amongst the most "political" of the earlier generation of new towns (rooted in strong opposition to the establishment-backed Bruce Report/Plan for Glasgow), Cumbernauld and to a similar extent Peterlee had a very direct bearing on the policies adopted by Milton Keynes when it began planning a decade later - in terms of both social/physical planning and lessons learned. Cumbernauld was also winning awards for the best implementation of new town planning concepts worldwide around the same time as Milton Keynes was first designated. It also pioneered the whole town artist thing, appointing the world's first in 1962.


One thing Glenrothes (and similarly Peterlee) had that many of the others didn't was already strong/cohesive communities to draw-on for its original inhabitants - namely mill and mining towns, indeed the then new Rothes Colliery was critical to its foundation, which made establishing an identity/community spirit a lot easier. Other new towns, esp near London looked more to clearance populations, from more varied communities, many already fragmented/dispersed post-WW2
 
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iona said:
I was meant to be going to Glasgow but even the really cheap hotel I've stayed in before is currently charging £400+ per night because of the climate thing :eek:
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Someone got banned from Airbnb as they tried to increase the price of a booking by £2000 after payment had already been made.. Even Airbnb were annoyed, they found the person a new place to stay and made the landlord give the person all his money back.
 
iona said:
Thanks, wouldn'tve wanted to ask anyone while covid is still this much of a thing but that's really kind of you to offer :)
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Hopefully covid won't be a thing by the time you need to somewhere to stay in Scotland.
 
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