NORTH LANARKSHIRE

Affordable, accessible, aesthetically pleasing - does North Lanarkshire offer the best blend of attributes?

Study the GSPC quarterly price data by county and North Lanarkshire emerges as one of the most affordable places to live in Central Scotland, which is perhaps surprising when you consider how much it has to offer. Rather less surprisingly, the combination of open space, affordable land and individual communities has made it irresistible to house builders, who in turn have made North Lanarkshire a successful new-build hotspot for home buyers.

The last available census data listed North Lanarkshireís population as around 325,000, a figure which has certainly increased in the last five years thanks to an intensive programme of new house building by a spectrum of companies, predominantly centred on that symbol of modern success ñ the four bedroom detached villa. At times, almost every development in the county has incorporated this particular home style into its portfolio, and family-friendly modern estates are increasingly the norm, even in relatively little-known villages like Carfin and Caldercruix.

As for the existing infrastructure, motorways criss-cross the rugged countryside which reaches its zenith in the vast Strathclyde Country Park, a national treasure centred on the eponymous loch. Just a couple of miles away, ambitious plans exist to create a brand new town on the old Ravenscraig steelworks site, an even more ambitious project than the 1960s New Town known as Cumbernauld, with its constantly evolving town centre and futuristic road layout. Here too, executive housing has been built in huge quantities, attempting to meet a seemingly insatiable demand for homes with en-suites, integral garages and no shared boundary walls.