St Leonards, East Kilbride

St Leonards is an area of the Scottish new town East Kilbride, in South Lanarkshire.

St Leonards is a residential area on the east side of the town. The majority of the area's streets are named after Glens, Islands, Rivers and Lochs from Scotland, for instance: Loch Shin, Loch Assynt, Glen Carron, Glen Tanner, Spean Avenue, Benbecula and Skye. About 39 streets are named after Glens of Scotland, 20 after Scottish Islands, 12 after Lochs and 7 after Scottish Rivers. St Leonards is well known for its "red brick" houses in the Calderglen area, which can be seen from St Leonards Road approaching High Common Road. The Calderglen area itself is one of East Kilbride's most sought-after locales. The area of St. Leonards also contains the John Wrights Sports Centre which is home of the Whitemoss A.A.C and East Kilbride Athletics Club. The area is also home to Calderglen Country Park and Claremont Parish Church, which is an evangelical Church of Scotland congregation, which celebrated its 40th Anniversary in 2008. The K Park Training Academy is next to Calderglen Country Park to the south of St Leonards.

Schools

Calderglen High School, which opened its new building on 18 February 2008,[1] was formed from the merger of the existing Claremont and Hunter High Schools. The School was opened by Adam Ingram.[2] The school was due for completion in August 2007 but this was delayed, causing the pupils to be housed in the existing Claremont High building. This area also contains Blacklaw Primary School (Opened on May 27, 1969 but rebuilt in 2007), Mount Cameron Primary School - the sole Scottish Gaelic speaking school in East Kilbride at present (redevelopment complete), and St. Hillary's Primary School (redevelopment complete).

Politics

The area of St Leonards is contained within the 'East Kilbride East' ward of East Kilbride. At the recent 2012 South Lanarkshire Council Election, 3 Councillors were elected for the area. These were Scottish Labour Party politician, John Cairney and SNP politicians, Jim Wardhaugh and Gladys Miller. The MSP for East Kilbride, and thus, St Leonards, is SNP Linda Fabiani. The MP for the area is SNP Lisa Cameron.

Recent events

The council has been redeveloping the blocks of flats into more attractive, modern looking ones with a new exterior. These are Clyde Tower (the highest tower in East Kilbride at 56m), Calder Tower and White Cart Tower.

Currently, the area has a small shopping centre and a set of small rental units which include a Tesco, pharmacy, post office, petrol station, bookmaker, bakers, cafe, pub, fish and chip shop, library, hairdresser, Indian takeaway and a dentist. This is due to be redeveloped shortly with the goal of providing a more modern look. Two of the units in the square have already changed ownership prior to the redevelopment: a jewellery shop and a joiner. This has caused some controversy

References

  1. ↑ "Calderglen High School Handbook 2012/2013" (PDF). The Homework Diary Company Ltd. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  2. ↑ Mitchell, Shona (11 February 2009). "Calderglen enjoys red letter day". East Kilbride News Online. Retrieved 28 February 2013.

Coordinates: 55°45′43″N 4°09′12″W / 55.76194°N 4.15333°W / 55.76194; -4.15333

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