BANGOR seafront could soon be home to a statue commemorating the late Queen Elizabeth II.
That’s the decision of an Ards and North Down Council committee that last week voted to have a permanent memorial to the UK’s longest-reigning monarch built in the redeveloped Marine Gardens.
That part of the seafront is due to be transformed by the coming overhaul of Queen’s Parade.
Late last year, the council’s Corporate Services Committee voted to rename the site Queen Elizabeth II Marine Gardens once the revamp is finished.
Now that same committee has voted to build a permanent memorial to the late monarch in the area as well.
It’s the brainchild of independent Unionist councillors Wesley Irvine and Steven Irvine, who suggested it at a meeting last Tuesday night.
“It’s very fitting that we as a council commemorate the life of our longest-reigning monarch,” said Wesley Irvine.
“It’s appropriate given longevity of service and the high esteem her late majesty was held in throughout the borough, that a permanent and lasting memorial be considered.
“Hopefully we can involve the public in any designs that come back to us, that would be very important.”
The Bangor Central councillor added that he wanted officials to bring back a range of costed options and designs for the memorial, potentially including a statue of the late Queen, with the committee to pick one of them.
The idea won widespread backing at the committee, with DUP alderman Stephen McIlveen stating that he’d presumed the renamed Queen Elizabeth II Marine Gardens would have included a marker explaining why the new name was chosen.
“But I do think it’s very appropriate that we have some view of the design and proposals over how we mark that within that area,” he added.
“It will be an interesting part two if we do go out to look for public feedback; I’m not sure whether that should be before or after [designs are chosen by the council].”
And UUP alderman Philip Smith said that a memorial would be ‘very fitting and very practical, not for today but for generations to come’ in explaining the new name of the Marine Gardens site.
It was stated that the statue will have to pass equality tests before it can be built.
In addition, the renaming of Marine Gardens has to be okayed by royal authorities before it can go ahead.
The committee unanimously agreed to build the permanent Queen Elizabeth II memorial. That decision still has to be rubber-stamped by the full council at the end of this month before it can come into effect, but that’s likely to be little more than a formality.
