Cumbernauld tops demolition poll

The shopping centre was described as a rabbit warren on stilts

The shopping centre in a Scottish new town has been voted Britain's most hated building in a TV poll.

Cumbernauld's centre secured the title in a Channel 4 poll, involving 10,000 people, to find the building most people would like to see demolished.

The dubious accolade came weeks after the town won the Carbuncle award for Scotland's most dismal town in an architecture magazine.

The £431m Scottish Parliament building came eighth in the demolition poll.

Rabbit warren

This was despite it winning a string of architectural prizes, including the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Stirling Prize for the best building of the year.

Cumbernauld's shopping centre is eight storeys high with a dual carriageway running beneath.

Prospect magazine, which has twice voted Cumbernauld as Scotland's most dismal town, described the shopping centre as a rabbit warren on stilts.

The Imax cinema built in Bournemouth in the 1990s was second in the Channel Four demolition poll, followed by Northampton's bus station and the Crown House former government building in Kidderminster.

The Gateshead multi-storey car park, which featured in the classic British gangster film, Get Carter, starring Michael Caine was also in the poll's "dirty dozen".

It isn't just about bricks and mortar, it's about the way buildings affect the quality of people's lives Nicolas Kent Demolition Executive producer

Executive producer Nicolas Kent said the series is as much about how buildings blight communities as about architectural taste.

"We are not suggesting that all of these buildings should be knocked down, but the big message from the thousands of nominations we received is clear," said Mr Kent.

"It isn't just about bricks and mortar, it's about the way buildings affect the quality of people's lives."

He added: "Many of these terrible buildings have survived for years, derelict and blighting their communities, but it is almost impossible to get them removed and replaced with something better.

"That's why we are proposing an 'X List' of bad buildings which could speed up the process towards demolition or radical renovation."