Town Centre Health Check publication
Contents
Retailing and Town Centre Profile/Introduction
4.0 Ahoghill Commercial Centre
5.0 Broughshane Commercial Centre
6.0 Cullybackey Commercial Centre
7.0 Portglenone Commercial Centre
Appendix A – Maps 1-40 - available in downloadable version
Appendix B – Definitions of categories - available in downloadable version
Retailing and Town Centre Profile
Introduction
Retail Hierarchy of the Mid and East Antrim Borough Council Plan Strategy 2030.
Strategic Policy SGS7 ‘Retail Hierarchy’ sets out the network and hierarchy of centres (termed the retail hierarchy) in the Plan Strategy 2030 and table 5.6 on page 74 describes how the hierarchy is broken down into 4 tiers and which uses are considered acceptable in each tier.
The top tier titled ‘Town Centres’ refers to the 3 largest town centres in the borough, namely Ballymena, Carrickfergus, and Larne.
Town centre health checks have previously been carried out in these 3 towns, historically by the Department of Environment (using consultants GL Hearn) and more recently by council in conjunction with retail consultants Nexus, during the preparation of the MEA Retail and Commercial Leisure Study 2019, which formed part of council’s evidence base for the Local Development Plan.
The second tier consists of 5 ‘small town centres’ namely Ahoghill, Broughshane, Cullybackey, Portglenone and Whitehead. Historically town centre health checks have not been carried out in these 5 locations as there were previously designated as villages in their respective Area Plans and therefore do not have designated town centre boundaries.
This therefore means the data available will be more limited and no previous data will be available to compare with, to establish trends, for example in town centre composition or vacancy rates until they are reviewed again in 2 years’ time.
Portglenone is designated as a small town in the Retail Hierarchy due to its significant retail offer but for clarity it remains designated as a village in the settlement hierarchy due to its population size.
In the Ballymena Area Plan 1986-2001 however, Ahoghill, Broughshane, Cullybackey and Portglenone do have commercial centres identified on their respective area plan maps.
So, for the purposes of this town centre health check, the extent of those commercial centres will be used for town centre health check assessment until such times as new town centre boundaries are designated in the Local Policies Plan (LPP).
Whitehead is the only remaining small town without a commercial centre identified in its respective Area Plan (Carrickfergus Area Plan 2001).
However, as part of the Urban Capacity Study carried out for all Mid and East Antrim settlements in 2018, character areas were identified according to guidance in PPS12.
Areas with a relatively higher propensity for change were known as Type 4 Character areas.
They included town centres, mixed use areas and transitional areas.
In this study they generally correlated with designated town and commercial centres, however in the absence of a defined town centre in Whitehead, survey work was used to define the extent of the area with the highest propensity to change and it was defined a Type 4 character area. see map 36 Appendix A).
This defined area will be known as ‘the study area’ for the purposes of the town centre health check survey.
A new town centre boundary will be proposed in the draft LPP, following further site work and analysis of the central area of Whitehead.