Stonehouse, South Lanarkshire 4.43

Stonehouse is a rural village in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is on Avon Water in an area of natural beauty and historical interest, near to the Clyde Valley. It is on the A71 trunk road between Edinburgh and Kilmarnock, near the towns of Hamilton, Larkhall and Strathaven.In 1971, Stonehouse was designated to become an addition to Scotland's new towns with the purpose of strengthening the output of public sector housing available to rehouse Glasgow's people from its unfit tenements, New Towns, a modern urban design to alleviate overcrowding in and around Glasgow and to generate industrial development, similar to the towns of East Kilbride, Cumbernauld and Livingston. Stonehouse was added to the responsibilities of the East Kilbride Development Corporation. Following the West Central Scotland Plan of 1974 and the inception of Strathclyde Regional Council in 1975, regional planning strategy was refocused upon regeneration within Glasgow leading to the establishment of the GEAR project in Glasgow's East End. With the encouragement of the Regional Council, the Secretary of State for Scotland, Bruce Millan, agreed that Stonehouse's development would be halted in 1976 after just 96 houses had been constructed.. When challenged by the Scottish Office to give evidence of the claimed interest of industries in moving to Stonehouse, the Development Corporation had been unable to demonstrate any significant interest.