Firm wanted Bangor and Ards designated official holiday resorts
By Violet Brown
COUNCILLORS have blocked a Lidl bid for longer Sunday opening hours in Bangor and Newtownards.
The retail giant wanted to have both areas designated official holiday resorts, which would have allowed them to open for extended hours between the start of March and the end of September every year.
But Ards and North Down Council last week rejected the move, with politicians stating they wanted to protect small businesses such as convenience stores, as well as safeguard family time for shop employees.
Currently Lidl, like other large stores, is only able to open from 1pm to 6pm on Sundays. Designating Bangor and Newtownards ‘seasonal towns’, as the law puts it, would allow the business to keep hours more like those of convenience shops, which can open on Sunday mornings and evenings.
Debating the change last Wednesday night, the council’s Environment Committee heard that Bangor Chamber of Trade backed the extended hours while Ards Chamber was against.
A shop workers union also came out against allowing Lidl to open for longer on Sundays.
Alderman Naomi Cotter-Armstrong proposed the council should not designate either Newtownards or Bangor as seasonal towns, referring to ‘the precious time for families to be together’ and the pressure put on student workers and others who feel forced to take the hours they were offered.
“This is not a religious issue, it is an issue about family and the time they spend together,” she said.
Councillor Nigel Edmund, who works in retail, highlighted the pressure put on staff in supermarkets and other stores. “I feel we need to protect staff that don’t want to work on a Sunday if they want a family day,” he said.
Although he respected the position of Bangor Chamber of Trade, councillor Barry McKee said he was happy to support the proposal to block the extension of Sunday trading hours in both towns.
“I think there are sufficient hours in the week when people can go shopping and retail workers need a balance in their life,” he said. “It is the one day of the week when the majority of those workers will not be expected to work and I think it is an important thing to protect.”
He also argued that in the long term, Bangor needs to transition away from a focus on retail and towards being ‘predominately a leisure-based destination for residents and visitors’.
Councillor Joe Boyle underlined the council’s duty to protect small businesses.
“The multi-nationals are there to make as much money as they can and to railroad anyone who gets in their road,” he said. “They nearly all want to become a one-stop shop and that is so detrimental to villages or to towns”.
However, councillor Patricia Morgan said she would ‘struggle to support this motion’. “We’re talking about 18 Sunday mornings and shopping is a leisure activity,” she concluded. “Bangor is demonstrably a holiday resort.”
The committee voted to block the idea of turning Bangor and Newtownards into officially designated holiday resorts. That decision still has to be rubber-stamped by a full council meeting at the end of this month.
