By Julie Waters
CALLS for Ards and North Down Council’s popular pipe band championships to be rotated between Bangor city and four of the borough’s neighbouring towns have been rejected.
Councillors have now taken a ‘common sense’ approach and agreed that the annual competition will continue to be held alternately between Newtownards and Bangor city.
The Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association Northern Ireland (RSPBNI) organises the competition with support from the council.
Earlier this year, former mayor Mark Brooks and councillor Lauren Kendall called for the championships to be rotated between Bangor, Holywood, Newtownards, Comber and Donaghadee.
The UUP alderman and Green Party councillor brought forward a notice of motion asking council officers to compile a report ‘considering the potential’ for the championship to be rotated around the five venues.
This report was presented recently to the committee and stated the sites favoured by RSPBNI are Castle Park, Ward Park and Regent House playing fields as ‘these sites are tried and tested with adequate parking and within walking distance of the town/city centre’.
Council officers also considered the viability of four further sites, The Commons and Crommelin Park in Donaghadee, Parkway in Comber and Spafield in Holywood.
The report explained that to host a championship, a site must meet an essential criteria including parking capacity for around 1,000 cars as well as buses, contest and practice areas as well as trader facilities. It is also desirable that the championship sites are close to the town centre, have toilet facilities, nearby accommodation, space for highland dance competitions and the option for a short parade of bands after the competition.
The council further explained that a comprehensive review of the sites was previously undertaken in 2018, when the council considered hosting the event in Bangor and Newtownards.
Five years later, a further site analysis was carried out in 2023 ‘in and around Newtownards’ to provide an alternative site to the airfield. At this stage the RSPBANI deemed the Regent House playing fields to be a suitable site.
Alderman Naomi Armstrong-Cotter proposed adopting the report’s recommendation to rotate the event between just Bangor and Newtownards saying that she ‘understood it is disappointing for some of our smaller areas’.
Alderman Robert Adair said it was a ‘common sense proposal’. “I hope this proposal puts the matter to bed for good,” he said.
“This is fair and equitable and we want to keep it [the championship] in the borough. It has a feel good factor and attracts visitors from over the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.”
Former Mayor Jennifer Gilmour said she was honoured to be chieftain at two pipe band championships during her mayoral year and acknowledged there would be people who ‘were not happy with the report and would have liked it to be brought to some of the smaller towns’.
However, the Bangor West councillor said that ‘unfortunately there are just some sites that are not suitable’ for hosting the championship.
Comber councillor Patricia Morgan said she supported the proposal because as ‘much as Comber would love to have it [the championship] it just wouldn’t fit’. The Alliance Party councillor called on the council ‘not to forget smaller places and hold smaller events in Comber, Donaghadee and the peninsula’.
