It aims to emulate the ideals of industrialist and philanthropist Robert Owen and will be built in the valleys where he created his New Lanark model of an industrial village 200 years ago.
Now a major milestone in the building of Owenstown has been reached, with local authority planners in possession of the application which aims to transform living once again in this part of South Lanarkshire.
The new community will cover 2000 acres in the Douglas Valley near Rigside, as close as possible to the spot where Owen embedded the roots of the co-operative movement that grew around his family's cotton mill. It was here workers were provided with homes, schools and evening classes, free healthcare and affordable food.
It aims to be a new self-sustaining community of 3200 homes, which will be managed by a co-operative.
A housebuilding factory, shops, cafes, restaurants, hotel, leisure facilities, care home, public parks, two new primary schools and one new secondary school feature in the plans, which are underpinned by the aims of sustainability, economic growth, employment and entrepreneurship.
The Hometown Foundation, a registered charity which has been established to help build new self-sustainable communities and regenerate rundown areas, is behind the project.
A spokesman for the development said that 8000 people will live in Owenstown in 10 years' time, with 6000 jobs to be created during construction and 3000 permanent posts to be spawned by the project.
Owenstown has also been influenced by Mondragón, a town in the Basque region of Spain which is run by the world's largest workers' co-operative.
The planning application, which has been three years in the making, has been lodged with South Lanarkshire Council, with a decision due in 2013.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article