Over the last few years, the Friends of Cumbernauld House Park have been working to develop a number of exciting projects and to give Cumbernauld House Park the facilities, amenities, and the quality of access, it deserves.
Our planned projects currently include installation of an Outdoor Gym and construction of a new footpath. The Outdoor gym would be constructed with reinforced and treated wood, preserving the character of the park, and the new footpath would link Cumbernauld House with Park Way, unobtrusively following the treeline.
We will always respect the history and character of the park and we also hope to further explore its rich heritage with a community archaeology project, overseen by professionals, with the land entirely reinstated to a good quality following any temporary exacvation.
We welcome feedback on these projects, and any other suggestions of potential improvements, either in person at our public meetings, via our ‘Contact Us’ page, or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CumbernauldPark.
We urgently need volunteers to support our group by contributing as little as 1 hour per month. Please come to our next meeting, on Monday 9th March at 7pm in Cumbernauld Theatre, and help us to improve your park.
Friends of Cumbernauld House Park 
While being sympathetic to the ideas I cannot understand why it might be necessary to site the outdoor gymn within 50 to 60 yards from and in plain view over open ground from the nearest houses. However it is constructed it cannot be other than an eyesore nor can it ‘preserve the character’ of that part of the park. It surely would be much better tucked away against woodland.
Dear Friends,
As someone who has lived in Cumbernauld for 50 years and in Meadow View for 19 of those, I view with serious misgivings plans for a so-called Outdoor Gym as outlined in your recent communications. There are two grounds for contesting this development.
First, it appears wholly inconsistent with the character of the park as both a local amenity and as a complex ecosystem. What the park needs is to be cared for and nurtured in a fashion consistent with the principles of its foundation and the complex tapestry of life and recreation it supports. It emphatically does not need ‘developed’ and I can imagine no environmental scientist or activist supporting such an assessment. My three sons now in their 20s had a rich childhood growing up in the park exactly as it currently flourishes. These environments do not exist to be ‘used’ but to be experienced’.
Secondly, the proposal pays no attention to the dynamics of space and society in a town of Cumbernauld’s history and socio-economic profile (proud as I am to have lived here as child and parent). Comparably misconceived green-space ventures in the park and elsewhere have as you will well know become focal points for anti-social behaviour, substance abuse, neighbourhood conflict and vandalism. I can inventory a dozen of these for you since 1964. Indeed, even as currently configured the park requires vigilant low-key monitoring by residents and sometimes prompt interventions from the police to maintain its fragile fabric. I wonder how overstretched police and council authorities will feel dealing with a spike in complaints and call-outs in response to misuse of your intended facility. I cannot see any of this redounding to the credit of the Friends, whose work I commonly respect and support.
I have spoken to many neighbours who share my views and we will be communicating them to our elected representatives.
Sincerely
Prof Robert A. Davis
Meadow View
Cumbernauld