page_title: Bangor, County Down
section_title: 20th century to present
hierarchical_section_title: Bangor, County Down / History / 20th century to present
caption_attribution_description: English: Creator: Photographer of archive image - Herbert Cooper Date: c.1910 &amp; 23rd January 2015 Original Format: Glass Plate Negative Description: Main Street, Bangor, County Down - merged with modern photograph of the same location. PRONI Ref (of archival image): D1422/A/2/1/6 Copying and copyright: Please see www.proni.gov.uk/index/research_and_records_held/copying_... For Copy Orders, contact: Email: proni@dcalni.gov.uk For fees and charges see: www.proni.gov.uk/index/about_proni/are_there_any_fees_and...
context_page_description: Bangor is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is a seaside resort on the southern side of Belfast Lough and within the Belfast Metropolitan Area. It functions as a commuter town for the Greater Belfast area, which it is linked to by the A2 road and the Belfast–Bangor railway line. Bangor is situated 13.6 miles east from the heart of Belfast, not far from George Best Belfast City Airport. The population was 61,011 at the 2011 Census.
  Bangor is part of the North Down constituency. Tourism is important to the local economy, particularly in the summer months, and plans are being made for the long-delayed redevelopment of the seafront; a notable historical building in the town is Bangor Old Custom House. The largest plot of private land in the area, the Clandeboye Estate, which is located a few miles from the town centre, belongs to the Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava. Bangor hosts the Royal Ulster and Ballyholme yacht clubs. Bangor Marina is one of the largest in both Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland, and holds Blue Flag status. The town is twinned with Bregenz in Austria and Virginia Beach in the United States.
context_section_description: The inter-war period of the early 20th century saw the development of the Tonic Cinema, Pickie Pool and Caproni's ballroom. All three were among the foremost of their type in Ireland, although they no longer exist. However, there is a park which replaced Pickie Pool named Pickie Fun Park. A children's paddling pool was created as the original Pickie Pool was demolished due to the rejuvenation of Bangor seafront in the 1980s and early 1990s. Pickie Fun Park closed in early 2011 to be refurbished and modernised. The park, which reopened in March 2012, boasts an 18-hole maritime themed mini golf course, children's electric cars and splash pads (replacing the old children's paddling pool). Also, the Pickie Puffer steam train has been given an enhanced route while the swans have a brand new lagoon.
  During World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed Allied troops in Bangor, who were departing to take part in the D-Day landings. In 2005, his granddaughter Mary-Jean Eisenhower came to the town to oversee the renaming of the marina's North Pier to the Eisenhower Pier.
  With the growing popularity of inexpensive foreign holidays from the 1960s onwards, Bangor declined as a tourist resort and was forced to rethink its future. The second half of the 20th century saw its role as a dormitory town for Belfast become more important. Its population increased dramatically; from around 14,000 in 1930 it had reached 40,000 by 1971 and 58,000 by the end of the century (some council publicity material counting it as high as 70,000), making it one of the ten largest settlements in all of Ireland. The late 1960s also saw work begin on the construction of the Ring Road around the town.
  The 1970s saw the building of the Springhill Shopping Centre, an out–of–town development near the A2 road to Belfast and Northern Ireland's first purpose-built shopping centre. It has been demolished to facilitate a modern Tesco supermarket. The town expanded rapidly in the 1980s to accommodate many new residents, absorbing much surrounding countryside. This period also saw the construction of the Marina and major light industrial and retail developments.
  In the early 1990s, Bloomfield Shopping Centre, another out–of–town development, opened beside Bloomfield Estate. In 2007, a major renovation of the centre began, including the construction of a multistorey car park. The trend towards out–of–town shopping centres was somewhat reversed with the construction of the Flagship Centre around 1990. The Flagship Centre went into administration and was closed in January 2019, it is currently undergoing appraisal for re-development options. A large Safeway store in the town centre, which has now become Asda.
  The former seafront of the town is awaiting redevelopment and has been for over two decades, with a large part of the frontage already demolished, leaving a patch of derelict ground facing onto the marina. Because of this, a great deal of local controversy surrounds this process and the many plans put forward by the council and developers for the land, in November 2009, it was voted by UTV viewers as Ulster's Biggest Eyesore. A state of the art recycling centre has been built in Balloo Industrial Estate which is supposed to be one of the most advanced in Europe. It opened in the summer of 2008.
caption: Bangor's main street in 1910 and 2015
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