By Julie Waters
OVER 100 protestors delivered the message ‘enough is enough’ when they gathered outside Bangor Castle in opposition to proposed seafront car park plans.
Local residents have strongly criticised the proposal by developers Bangor Marine to bulldoze a popular and mature green space and turn it into a 90 space paid car park.
It is understood the decision was taken last August in a behind closed doors meeting between Bangor Marine, council officials and councillors. The council is refusing to release minutes of the meeting.
The council has also granted a 125-year lease to Bangor Marine for the car park which will net the development company tens of millions of pounds over the lifetime of the lease.
The protest was held before the monthly meeting of Ards and North Down Council on Wednesday evening and was addressed by former independent councillor Ray McKimm who urged local residents to make their voices heard.
Mr McKimm, a former Bangor Central councillor, said the plans had been agreed but now changes are being introduced without any consultation.
“It has taken 30 years to get a bit of land with a red line drawn round it,” he said.
Mr McKimm told the protestors that recent transport assessments carried out in relation to Queen’s Parade had shown there was ‘sufficient’ car parking for the area but ‘then they go and say we need another 90 spaces’.
He said that people power had led to the scrapping of the controversial multi- million pound plan to create a greenway on the North Down coastline and it was time to say ‘enough is enough’ again.
“This community has said before ‘enough is enough’ and they won and I think these people are empowered. This is not what they were promised and it is not what they said would happen. So what changes next?”
Said Mr McKimm: “The two lead partners (in the seafront redevelopment) are the council and the Department for Communities and the council need to take a lead and listen to the voices of the community. The councillors are there to represent the people standing outside the doors of Bangor Castle.”
He told the protestors: “They are thinking you are going to go home and sit on your sofa. Write to everybody, write to your MP who is on board, to your MLAs who are on board and write to your 40 councillors. They represent you, write to them and write to them again.”
Resident Ian Rodgers voiced his concerns saying: “They have taken away the seafront car park because the new frontage will be connected to the water’s edge.
But now they are taking away our linkage to the water’s edge by building another car park. You can see how narrow it is. You will not get 90 cars on there.”
Mr Rodgers criticised the claim that the council had granted a 125 year lease to the developer for the car park as ‘disgusting’. He also expressed fears that once a change of use had been granted to redevelop the green area into a car park, the area could be further redeveloped in future years.
“This is a historic aesthetic corner of Bangor and people love to look at it. We don’t want to lose the old history of the town,” said Mr Rodgers.
Pola Neil and Donald Neil have lived in the Queen’s Parade area for over 30 years and said the car park plans were ’absurd’.
Said Mr O’Neil: “We have lived in our current house for over 31 years and the seafront has been a contentious issue for almost that whole time. Finally, things got moving but now there seems to be a degree of overreach.
“We now have the ridiculous situation that they have cleared a car park that facilitated visitors and townspeople and are replacing it with a green area.
“They are then taking an existing mature green area in front of Victorian houses and replacing it with a carpark–it is absurd.”
Resident Linda McAuley described the car park plans as ‘absolutely ridiculous’. “They are knocking down a car park to build another car park on a green area.
“The feeling is the council make the same mistakes over and over. The (seafront) car park should never have been where it is, now they are building another. There is no clear vision. Bangor seafront needs to be free of cars for people to enjoy.”
Michael Dunn, who also lives in the area, shared his reservations saying: “It is ridiculous, to dig up one car park to put in another and get rid of green space, it is absolutely absurd. If it was so important, why was it not included in the original plans?”
Resident Stephen Pinkerton said: “The loss of the green space will not just affect residents, it is everybody. It is getting more difficult to find usable outdoor space.”
He stressed the importance of the green area as a link to the new Marine Gardens. “It will link the council’s new expensive gardens to Pickie Park and the coastal path. It (the car park) would be a very unnatural break to what the council are investing in. There are also quite a few car parks in Bangor.”
