Newry: More than £16m approved for city park at Albert Basin

The 15-acre park is planned for the Albert Basin, using £16.2m of funding

Funding has been announced to create a new city park in Newry.

The 15-acre park is planned for the Albert Basin, using £16.2m of funding allocated as part of the executive's draft Budget for 2022-25.

Finance Minister Conor Murphy said it would provide a community space for the people of Newry and a ''significant capital injection'' in the area.

It is hoped the project, dubbed a ''carbon collection zone'', will also help improve air quality in the city.

Newry, Mourne and Down District Council chairperson Cathy Mason said the park would be a ''sustainable sanctuary'' as well as becoming a tourist attraction for visitors.

''The provision of a world-class city park at Albert Basin is central to our vision for the regeneration of Newry city centre,'' she said.

''As well as providing a destination leisure space for the residents of Newry and beyond, the park will play its part in attracting investment, promoting tourism and creating jobs and sustaining our environment.''

Analysis

By Cormac Campbell, BBC News NI south east reporter

The reimagining of the 15-acre Albert Basin site in the centre of Newry has long been a hot topic in the city.

Geographically it forms something of an island - wedged between Newry Canal and the Clanrye River and running to Victoria Lock near the border.

After Newry Port moved to Warrenpoint in the 1970s, the site became known as St Christopher's Park, where it was home for some of the city's traveller community.

But by the early 2000s, it was vacant.

Part of the problem in terms of redevelopment is that it is only accessible to traffic at one point and that point is at the centre of a busy one-way system.

A campaign group have fought to have the park built

In the early 2000s, a plan was brought forward to redevelop the site into a multi-use facility including offices, leisure, housing and recreation facilities.

However, this proposal failed during the last economic crash, leading the then Newry and Mourne District Council to unsuccessfully attempt to sell the site.

At this point, a community based campaign group called Newry 2020 began to emerge. This group aimed to apply pressure to the council to convert the site into a public park.

The rather straightforward argument was the belief that Newry is the only city in the whole of Ireland that does not have a fitting city centre park. They set about gaining public support, initially by way of petitions and then using them to lobby the council to make the project a reality.

A section of the site has already become part of the cross-border Carlingford Lough greenway but campaigners argued that the pace of movement on transforming the rest of the site was too slow.

The project has now taken a major step forward.

Columba O'Hare has campaigned for the new park for a number of years

Columba O'Hare has been a member of campaign group Newry 2020 since it was established.

He said the news was a ''brilliant early Christmas present''.

"There have been so many people campaigning for this park here in Newry for so many years and it is really a victory for them,'' he said.

''They have been campaigning to the powers that be to produce the money to allow us to get our project going. So at long last, hopefully, this is the start of it."

He said the park would be a "gamechanger" for the area.

"It can be a real catalyst for the new vibrant Newry that we can all be proud of," he added.