By Joe McCann
ARDS and North Down Council has stated it is waiting on the return of a business case before deciding on the future of Bangor Castle.
At a Corporate Services Committee meeting, council officers were questioned following a report which came back detailing the results of a TUV-sponsored petition which called on the council to retain ownership of the castle.
The petition, which was signed by 1,289 people called on the council ‘to retain Bangor Castle in public ownership as its civic headquarters and to preserve its role as a municipal building for the people of Bangor and North Down.’
It further called for Bangor Castle to be retained as the civic headquarters of the council, to protect its civic functions, including council meetings, receptions, weddings, and public access to the grounds and museum. It also asked that any proposals to convert Bangor Castle into a private hotel or commercial venue be rejected.
Speaking on the issue, councillor Wesley Irvine said the castle’s future was of great interest to the people of Bangor and asked what engagement the council has been doing around this.
In response a council officer said they were currently awaiting the outcome of a business case and would proceed with a decision once it had been presented to them.
A council officer said: “There are a lot of people who are keen to see the building retained, as this petition suggests, for civic purposes. Equally, there are people saying they appreciate the difficulties for the Council of maintaining a building of this nature and that other opportunities should be looked at. There was a mixed level of views and, of course, there have been a lot of other questions around regeneration in Bangor as a whole.
“So the position we’re in at the moment is that the Council has agreed in principle that we would look at this hotel option and an OBC [Outline Business Case] is being developed around that and that will come back to the Council for further consideration. We’re still waiting on that OBC at the moment.”
Councillor Irvine asked about the timescale the OBC would be expected in and was told it was a sizeable case but the council hoped to see something regarding it in the next few months.
