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<\/p>\nI was in Magherafelt today (well, a week last Saturday), for the first time in quite a while.<\/p>\n
What struck me was how unlike other Northern Irish towns it is in terms of being relatively free from vacant stores and from the other usual symptoms of commercial ill-health such as lots of cash only businesses (barbers, nail salons, kebab shops) and bookies, charity shops and vape shops.<\/p>\n
It certainly has these but they are not obvious in their representation, indeed in contrast there\u2019s lots of cafes and I mean quite top shelf affairs, not just Bob & Bert\u2019s (which I visited \u2013 I have small children, B&B are more tolerant of crumb flinging toddlers than coffee guru type places) and numerous clothes shops, including a fantastic tailors on the Diamond and other small businesses taking up commercial space.<\/p>\n
What with all the yoga pants-clad ladies walking around with expensive takeaway coffees, I had thought myself to be in a wealthy urban suburb of some city, not a town whose two chief annual events were once a May market that was besieged by fart-gas-armed teenagers and Dunamoney Flute Band\u2019s annual band parade.<\/p>\n
Even the alleyway to the bus station is lined with nice businesses.<\/p>\n
Aside from the sad sight of the former cattle market and a site on Church Street (see link below) the town is quite free of derelict buildings unlike e.g. Newtownards or Downpatrick or Ballymoney.<\/p>\n
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So, I\u2019ve been pondering all day (well, week now) as to why Magherafelt has not succumbed to the commercial canker that many (if not most) of NI\u2019s larger towns have fallen to, especially as people often refer to Amazon as the major death blow to the high street, but Magherafelt is no less immune to Bezos Inc. than any other town.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t have much of the supposed drivers of prosperity e.g. Industry and diversity, unlike neighbouring Cookstown or Dungannon, both of which are struggling to house their various engineering and manufacturing companies and are very diverse in terms of population.<\/p>\n
Regarding industry, well, the sawmills are gone, the cattle market is closed, there\u2019s maybe one clothes factory left but it\u2019s very small and bespoke and it has no more industrial estates than any other place.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s cement plants by the Lough, but if they were fortune bringers then Antrim, Cookstown and Dungannon would also share the bounty too.<\/p>\n
I will go through the suggestions as given by people who were forced to ponder this at my leisure.<\/p>\n
Location Location Location \u2013 It is situated 40min from Belfast (depending on traffic) making it a good dorm town.<\/p>\n
Yes, this IS true in its own right.<\/p>\n
However, the 1hr commuter radius also includes Bangor, Newtownards, Larne, Carrickfergus, Dungannon, Ballymena, Antrim, Armagh, Lisburn, Downpatrick, Craigavon, Banbridge, Newry and numerous other larger towns (maybe Coleraine at a pinch) and they have varying degrees of High Street blight.<\/p>\n
So, it can\u2019t just be the commuter belt aspect.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s definitely not a tourist area, that\u2019s for sure \u2013 It has the Sperrins nearby and the Loughs Neagh and Beg, but none of these are hot tickets and again if they were then other neighbouring towns would be seeing similar rewards.<\/p>\n
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The Good Schools \u2013 Yes, St Mary\u2019s and the Rainey Endowed have enviable reputations \u2013 but there are good schools in other commuter belt towns too \u2013 Armagh, Lisburn, Downpatrick, Ballymena, Carrickfergus, Ballyclare and Dungannon.<\/p>\n
Civil Service Jobs \u2013 Maybe, but, what big town in NI doesn\u2019t have a sizeable civil servant body?<\/p>\n
Magherafelt has a hospital that provides numerous rear echelon services, whereas Antrim, Coleraine, Newry, Dungannon, Newry, Craigavon and Downpatrick have full blown hospitals (supposedly\u2026) and there are other smaller hospitals in places like Lisburn.<\/p>\n
It also has a fire station, a police station and a courthouse, as do most of the other big commuter belt towns.<\/p>\n
So again, numerous places all sharing the same advantages, but with different results for only one place (I think).<\/p>\n
Architecture? \u2013 Hard no \u2013 while it has not yet fallen for the \u2018knock down everything and build apartments\u2019 strategy, its architectural vernacular is relatively intact, but not awe inspiring.<\/p>\n
I was in Newtownards the other day (week), the town suffers a lot from retail vacancies and derelict buildings, but it has a lot of nice buildings.<\/p>\n
So, it\u2019s not the cityscape that draws people and there are quite a few other towns with the makings of a nice townscape (for the time being, no doubt developers will see to their blandfication in due course).<\/p>\n
So, perhaps then we should look for what Magherafelt does not have, or where it differs from its fellow box-tickers?<\/p>\n
Out of town hyper markets \u2013 Magherafelt doesn\u2019t have any supersized supermarkets.<\/p>\n
It has a big Lidl and a wee Tesco at the outskirts of the town but no mammoth Asda, no huge Sainsburys-Argos-B&Q retail park, no Tesco Extra.<\/p>\n
It has a small sized supermarket in the middle of the town (JC Stewarts) and a shopping centre that is within effortless walking distance of the town centre.<\/p>\n
Nearly all of the aforementioned towns (Newry, Ballymena, Dungannon, Newtownards, Cookstown, Coleraine, Larne, Antrim, Downpatrick, Portadown\u2026) have huge supermarkets and\/or retail parks away from the town centre, and where they may have them \u2018reasonably\u2019 close to the centre (like Sainsbury\u2019s in Ballymena) they are not conveniently close so as to warrant footfall for the town centre.<\/p>\n
In fact, a friend of mine who used to run businesses in both Magherafelt and Ballymena told me that the former Magherafelt District council refused planning permission for numerous large supermarkets and de facto retail parks, in his opinion this spared the town from a commercial savaging.<\/p>\n
However, since then Magherafelt council was absorbed into Mid Ulster Council. Does this mean that whatever force field is protecting it will fail as the minds that steered poor old Cookstown to its present awful state have their way?<\/p>\n
Or can Magherafelt remain \u2018unique\u2019?<\/p>\n
If so, how?<\/p>\n
Well, let us examine more differences between the \u2018Felt and the stragglers.<\/p>\n
The Civil Service \u2013 aside from the council offices, most of Magherafelt\u2019s government jobs are within walking distance of the town \u2013 the hospital, the social services (both on the same road), the schools \u2013 all a dander away from a caf\u00e9, shop or eatery.<\/p>\n
Compare this to e.g. Downpatrick <\/p>\n
The council offices \u2013 moved outside of the town<\/p>\n
The hospital \u2013 moved outside of the town<\/p>\n
The schools \u2013 either moved outside of the town or pupils are prohibited from entering the town at lunch time<\/p>\n
(The powers that be seem determined to bring the \u2018donut effect\u2019 to Downpatrick, for whatever reason)<\/p>\n
As it stands Downpatrick is full of cash only barber shops, cash only take-aways, cash only nail salons and charity shops, and the remaining small independent businesses lie in an uninsurable flood plain (that is further compounded by a raised height retail park that recently was given planning permission to be rebuilt on an EVEN BIGGER SCALE instead of being dismantled and turned into an overflow lough as common sense would recommend).<\/p>\n
While we\u2019re at it, let\u2019s look at Antrim town \u2013<\/p>\n
Council offices \u2013 Outside of town centre<\/p>\n
Benefits office \u2013 Sort of in the town, but not smack-bang.<\/p>\n
Hypermarket \u2013 Inconvenient distance from the main street<\/p>\n
Retail Park? \u2013 Oh my yes \u2013 off of a main road, containing everything you\u2019d ever need so as to render the town centre unnecessary<\/p>\n
Hospital \u2013 Located miles away from the town<\/p>\n
Secondary Schools \u2013 Outside of the town<\/p>\n
So, basically, there\u2019s no need to go to town \u2013 Antrim town, from what I can see, has been given the North American urban treatment and is suffering a North American urban centre fate.<\/p>\n
Newry<\/p>\n
In the Simpsons there is a character known as Donny Don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Basically the school children are encouraged to avoid repeating Donny\u2019s mistakes. I personally consider Newry to be the Donny Don\u2019t of Northern Irish towns.<\/p>\n
It has everything for success and lifestyle \u2013 proximity to the 2 biggest urban centres on the island, an historic core with beautiful buildings, some nice eateries and pubs, a cathedral, parks, hills, a strong sense of community, canals, a train station, tremendous scenery on the door step.<\/p>\n
Yet it\u2019s a complete tip.<\/p>\n
In the Netherlands this place would be paradise.<\/p>\n
And again, it has more in common with Antrim than Magherafelt in terms of large commercial sites being sited away from the town centre \u2013 retail parks, supermarkets, council offices, hospital \u2013 all sited away from the town (apart from the retail park with the TK Maxx \u2013 but it has a wall of derelict buildings cutting it off from the canal side \u2013 an extremely baffling thing to do in planning terms).<\/p>\n
We have all seen first-hand that supermarkets can be accommodated in town centre historic buildings e.g. Newcastle\u2019s former Lidl or the former Tesco on Royal Avenue.<\/p>\n
If the supermarkets were denied planning permission for out-of-town behemoths then at least one of them would\u2019ve opened shop in the town centre thereby bringing people to the centre, rather than divert them away.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Cookstown<\/p>\n
I remember Cookstown used to be thriving \u2013 in the 80\u2019s!<\/p>\n
East Tyrone was one of the most dangerous places for the British army in the 80\u2019s and as such the main street was like a Cold War German border crossing.<\/p>\n
Yet, I recall the markets and wealth of small shops.<\/p>\n
I can honestly say that I have not spent a penny in Cookstown\u2019s town centre since they built the retail park that is accessed through what used to be a terraced row and since the mega Asda was built.<\/p>\n
And asking around it seems that Cookstown is not in great shape, and tbh it looks awful, they seem to hate their old buildings and would demolish them as soon as look at them.<\/p>\n
Is Magherafelt bound for the same fate?<\/p>\n
Well, why not?<\/p>\n
Here is a property listing that, if accurate, would see an entire row of vernacular buildings flattened and replaced with, um, \u2018Ecole de Cookville\u2019 style of architecture (i.e. crap buildings).<\/p>\n
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