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What might have been - 21 Aug 2008
LURGAN Forward has broken its silence on the town plans which now lie in ruins because of the planning service.LURGAN Forward has broken its silence on the town plans which now lie in ruins because of the planning service.
The Lurgan Mail had recently reported how a possible £100 million development had been scuppered by the release of the town centre boundaries document.
For Lurgan Forward it has created a 'mission impossible' with central Craigavon now termed a town centre and doubled in size - to the horror of the town development company.
Details of the plans for the town had been kept out of the public eye due to their commercially sensitive nature. Lurgan Forward has now confirmed that it had been in negotiations with potential investors over the past two years.
Many people had dismissed any possibility of attracting investors to Lurgan, yet it has now emerged that the scale of the investment was significantly greater than any could imagine.
Charles Gardiner, Chairman of Lurgan Forward said: "Over the past two years Lurgan Forward has been in direct and shuttle negotiations between investors and land & property owners in the Castle Lane area. Despite the odds not only were we successful in attracting investment, we had negotiated to contract stage.
"These were about to be exchanged for completion of purchase by major investors. Several designs had been created for a major retail and leisure development. However, as a result of the long awaited town boundaries publication and the increased area around the 'town centre' of central Craigavon the developers now consider Lurgan as too great a risk and the whole project has been lost.
"Lurgan Forward had seen the proximity and expansion of the central area as a major risk at the outset. We had therefore been lobbing statutory agencies, local and regional government for the past three years to ensure that Lurgan was given its rightful opportunity and protection under planning legislation, and that the Town Centre Boundaries would be equitable and fair within the Borough.
"Quite simply this has not happened. Lurgan Forward had delivered far beyond its remit. Others, however, have failed to deliver anything near the minimum of their duty with especially Planning Service failing to do the job it is tasked to do. While some may trumpet the investment in the rest of the Borough, in effect the Planners have delivered a net loss of many millions of pounds not only to Lurgan, but to the Borough. To say the situation is farcical would undervalue the seriousness of the situation."
He went on: "The proposed development would have given the people of Lurgan a new, totally rejuvenated town with cinema complex and a hotel, which would have given not only the community of Lurgan but the greater community a shopping and leisure destination in the heart of a traditional town centre."
The 'Mail' had revealed plans in March for a major residential development on Castle Lane. It is now understood that this was only a secondary option for the developer.
The development proposed by Lurgan Forward far exceeded this area.
Noel Ferguson, Town Centre Manager stated: "This is exceptionally frustrating. Lurgan Forward has worked exhaustively to attract the facilities to the town that people have long yearned for, new shops, better facilities, something different to attract large numbers of people.
"This scheme would have exceeded these aspirations for rather than simply look in isolation at Castle Lane we had taken a visionary approach to rejuvenate the town. Dovetailing the designs with the proposed Public Realm works, provision of hundreds of additional car parking spaces with the development of an eight acres site that would have stretched from Church Walk right through to Windsor Avenue."