This section details the plans for the town of Irvine that were made in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and the radical changes to the town that happened as a result.
Below is one of the planning maps for Irvine New Town, I’ve included it at the highest resolution that I could find it. Which allows you to view it in all it’s glory. The map shows clearly all 3 Phases of the Irvine Centre project, but of interest to a local perhaps more is the […]
The New Town plan not only made provision for new shopping, new transit, new housing and new entertainment areas, but also new factories to create jobs for this newly expanded version of the town. The planners created modular designs, that they called “The Advanced Factory”, clean standardised units ready for any business to move into. However they […]
While the New Town provided many new areas of housing in Irvine, and areas were set aside for shops, post offices and community facilities within these new districts. The pictures below show that the plans went even further, with larger areas set aside within housing areas, for supermarkets, pubs and a range of shops, providing […]
Phase 3 of the New Town Plan would have continued the flow from the Irvine Centre along Irvine Harbour, demolishing that entire district to replace with a series of similar structures. These as can be seen in the below picture would have had the same roof structure as the Irvine Centre, and would in many […]
Phase 2 of the Irvine New Town plan was never implemented, so all that exists is a series of designs and plans, the scaling down of the redevelopment can even be seen in the difference between elements of phase 1 which were drastically scaled down from the original plans. The first image below shows the […]
Resisting proposals of an earlier plan, which advocated the use of a greenfield site to the east of the town, Irvine Development Corporation embarked upon a phased redevelopment of the existing town centre in the 1970s. The overreaching aim was to provide Irvine with amenities comparable to nearby Ayr and Kilmarnock, enabling the town to […]
Bridgegate House was intended as a link between the traditional centre of the town at Irvine Cross, and the planned Irvine Centre which was to bridge the river and new dual-carriageway through-road. Subsequent phases, which would have extended the centre west to the railway station and harbour beyond, were never realised. The first phase of […]