Town concern

As one who has lived in Lurgan all my life I am appalled at what is happening to our town and have taken every opportunity within the various trader associations to voice my strong concerns at the direction in which the planners, consultants and Craigavon Council are taking us.

As someone who well remembers when Lurgan was a thriving and successful town with car parking available from one end of the town to the other and well-supported by enthusiastic shoppers – so what happened? How did we go from a thriving town to what we have today? The easy answer is to say “well, it must be the recession”. Not so, Lurgan’s problems go back much further. It was the creation of Craigavon as a borough and the many problems that flowed from that decision. I believe that Lurgan with its own council and councillors concentrating their efforts on Lurgan and the village areas would have served the town and its people much better. However, that is in the past and we must deal with the circumstances in which we now find ourselves.

Over the years Craigavon shopping centre, now known as Rushmere, has increased in size over and above anything that was originally planned for it. It undoubtedly serves the people of Craigavon in many respects but it should never be allowed to take the place of towns like Lurgan and Portadown which bring independent retailing with all the benefits and services they can contribute to a local town and its people

The local Chamber of Trade recognised the changing circumstances in the Borough and in order to compete with out of town shopping centres proposals were put forward as to how they believe the town should progress, right down to the type of street lights, seating, signage etc.

However, while these proposals were unanimously endorsed by the Chamber of Trade, nothing of what the traders wanted was accepted by those in authority.

The changes to the town in recent months has been the result of the implementation of the Public Realm Works. When those plans were first published and placed in the town hall for consultation it was quite clear to me that the proposals were not something that would benefit our town. I therefore took the opportunity to make my objections known. The consultant on duty at the town hall informed me that there was overwhelming support from the general public. This surprised me so I decided to check the comment book which was provided. After taking note of what was said on every page I in fact discovered the majority of people were opposed to the plans. Yet this view was ignored.

The Council then acquiesced in the consultant’s views, rejecting the traders’ views and we now have a design for Lurgan which is to its detriment in many respects. We now have unnecessary large footpaths, considerably reduced parking space and dual carriageway which runs into single carriageway creating bottlenecks at different points throughout the town. Frankly, I believe a child could have come up with a better design or as one visitor to our town recently said “Are the planners mad?”

In order to understand what the planners and Council have decided for the future of Lurgan it is necessary to read carefully the document entitled “Craigavon Integrated Development Framework”, published in April 2010 and subsequently accepted by our elected representatives. It states “People will come to Lurgan for a relaxed shopping and leisure experience …”. I find this rather strange as the Council have already decided in principle to close the swimming pool and its associated leisure facilities.

It is obvious that the planners and Council wish to downgrade Lurgan and concentrate recreation and shopping in the central area. Further development of the central area will have a huge detrimental economic effect on Lurgan, its people and traders.

It is clear also that Lurgan railway station is not to be upgraded nor are the obvious difficulties with the constant hold-ups at the level crossing to be reduced due to a lack of finance. Yet in the very next paragraph it is stated “the case for a new railway station in central Craigavon should continue to be investigated”. So where is the finance coming from when apparently there is none available for Lurgan?

In recent times there has been much discussion, concern, ridicule and criticism voiced about the so-called improvements to the town. I would like to fully endorse the sensible comments made by several people in last week’s Lurgan Mail. They are totally correct in their justifiable criticisms of the work going on in the town. How is it that the ordinary people can see that the grand design for Lurgan is not helpful and is damaging to its future prosperity and yet the highly-paid consultants can’t? The scheme is called the “Flagship Regeneration Scheme” – what an inappropriate title!

I believe the people who know what is best for Lurgan are those who pay the rates, namely the residents and retailers – not the consultants who mainly, if not all, live outside the Borough of Craigavon. It is my view that a conservative estimate for consultancy fees alone is upwards of 250,000. The tragedy is that we, the ratepayers, are left with the bill.

I attended a recent combined meeting of the Lurgan and Portadown traders and amazingly it took a consultant and two officers from the Council to arrange how best the views of the two towns could be reflected. In my view far too many consultants are employed at too high a cost when all that is needed is a bit of common sense and to use the staff already employed by the Council.

Despite these setbacks I will continue to make representations to improve our environment and to make Lurgan more customer-friendly. For example, I have been campaigning for over three years to alleviate the parking situation in our town. I am now hopeful that in the foreseeable future two hour parking facilities may be introduced in the side streets of Lurgan.