Key focus on prioritising town centre future vision

Key focus on prioritising town centre future vision

20 September 2023

A SERIES of projects are to be prioritised moving forward with the primary focus on town centre locations.

They include St Patrick’s Square, Market Street and St Patrick’s Avenue, Scotch Street, De Courcy Square, Church Street, Irish Street, entrances to Lynn Doyle Place, English Street, Dunleath Park, The Grove, Grove Shopping Centre, car parks, the Department of Health building in Market Street, bus station, Downpatrick and Co Down Railway and Rathkeltair House.

A new pedestrian link from the Market Street car park to the Downe retail park is also proposed, but the future vision says it must sensitive to the setting of the surrounding historic landscape, given its proximity to Cathedral Hill.

There are plans to make St Patrick’s Square safer and more usable by removing vehicular access through it, with a traffic movement and public realm study commissioned to test a number of scenarios and their relative cost and benefit.

The new framework document says temporary interventions should be trialled and their impacts monitored, in tandem with calls for increased traffic management enforcement to stop people parking on footpaths in this area.

And to justify any future reconfiguration of the Square, a trial temporary road closure for the artisan market and other events is suggested.

An alternative access from Market Street via a laneway close to the existing public toilets site to the Fold Housing development adjacent to the St Patrick Centre is also suggested. The blueprint for the future suggests this would provide a significant opportunity to remove vehicles from St Patrick’s Square in the longer term.

The future vision is keen to encourage people to stay and spend time in St Patrick’s Square by providing informal family seating and promote the pedestrian links between this part of the town and English Street.

The document suggests that should the Grove Shopping Centre be redeveloped, there would be “significant benefits” to opening the view to the Cathedral from St Patrick’s Square and Market Street by realigning the frontage onto St Patrick’s Square.

There is also an aspiration to widen pavements and reduce the road space on Market Street between the junctions with St Patrick’s Avenue and Irish Street. 

This is not a new idea, but it has been suggested that to inform the potential benefits, temporary interventions should be trialled on Market Street and St Patrick’s Avenue, with consideration given to temporarily closing the main street for events to trial the re-routing of traffic and the impact on businesses and footfall in the town.

There are also suggestions to reduce traffic in Scotch Street — which is already pedestrianised — to make it a safe, usable space, with calls for increased traffic management enforcement to stop parking on pavements in this part of the town centre.

Other suggestions include seating and planting to temporarily close access to the street for activities and monitor impacts.

Consultants have been commissioned to develop proposals to remodel nearby De Courcy Square, with the design options shared with the Downpatrick Regeneration Group, local community and residents as part of the consultation process before the designs are finalised and funding sought to implement them.

An environmental improvement scheme is planned for Church Street, with the focus on shop frontage upgrades. Better footpath maintenance is also suggested.

Subject to funding, better planters are proposed for Irish Street, alongside the removal of existing whin bushes and gorse and replacing them with native wildflowers that will contribute to habitat for pollinators and upgrading the triangular space at the junction of Irish Street and John Street as a focal point.