St Leonards, East Kilbride


St Leonards is an area of the Scottish new town East Kilbride, in South Lanarkshire.
St Leonards is a residential area on the east side of the town. The majority of the area's streets are named after Glens, Islands, Rivers and Lochs from Scotland, for instance: Loch Shin, Loch Assynt, Glen Carron, Glen Tanner, Inch Murrin, Benbecula and Skye. About 39 streets are named after Glens of Scotland, 20 after Scottish Islands, 12 after Lochs and 7 after Scottish Rivers. St Leonards is well known for its "red brick" houses in the Calderglen area, which can be seen from St Leonards Road approaching High Common Road. The Calderglen area itself is one of East Kilbride's most sought-after locales. The area is also home to , an evangelical Church of Scotland congregation, which celebrated its 40th Anniversary in 2008. The K Park Training Academy is next to Calderglen Country Park to the south of St Leonards.

Schools

, which opened its new building on 18 February 2008, was formed from the merger of the existing Claremont and Hunter High Schools. The School was opened by Adam Ingram. The school was due for completion in August 2007 but this was delayed, causing the pupils to be housed in the existing Claremont High building. This area also contains Blacklaw Primary School, Mount Cameron Primary School - the sole Scottish Gaelic speaking school in East Kilbride at present, and St. Hillary's Primary School.

Politics

The area of St Leonards is contained within the 'East Kilbride East' ward of East Kilbride. At the recent 2012 South Lanarkshire Council Election, 3 Councillors were elected for the area. These were Scottish Labour Party politician, John Cairney and SNP politicians, Jim Wardhaugh and Gladys Miller. The MSP for East Kilbride, and thus, St Leonards, is SNP Linda Fabiani. The MP for the area is SNP Lisa Cameron.

Recent events

The council has been redeveloping the blocks of flats into more attractive, modern looking ones with a new exterior. These are Clyde Tower, Calder Tower and White Cart Tower.
Currently, the area has a small shopping centre and a set of small rental units which include a Tesco, pharmacy, post office, petrol station, bookmaker, bakers, cafe, pub, fish and chip shop, library, hairdresser, Indian takeaway and a dentist.