By Amy Pollock
RESIDENTS have pledged to ‘make Millisle great again’ by setting up a new community group to oversee the enhancement of the village’s appearance.
It comes amid residents’ and regular holidaymakers’ growing frustrations over the long-term lack of maintenance in the area, including the beach, its car park and the Main Street.
The new committee group, named Make Millisle Great Again, comprises 22 local people who share responsibilities in leading the transformation of the centre and surrounding areas with support from other residents aged 7 to 80 years-old.
Gary Mann, a committee member and concerned resident, said their goal is to ‘recapture what Millisle used to be’, citing it as a once thriving village that has now become a ‘forgotten village’ and a ‘ghost town’.
“I’m here 45 years, and when we first came down to Millisle, the village was booming. The amusements were everywhere, the streets were packed with people, you had two or three chip shops in the town and you had ice cream shops.
“The beach was lovely, absolutely lovely. But now, it’s just like an overgrown field.
“Over the last few years, the place has just gone downhill. There’s been nothing done. Millisle just seems to be forgotten about,” said Mr Mann.
He said in its current condition, Millisle is at risk of losing even more footfall.
“People I know have said ‘we’re thinking of wrapping the caravan up’, ‘our kids don’t want to come down here anymore’ or ‘we go to Newcastle, Portrush, Portstewart and the streets are buzzing’. You can’t even get an ice cream in Millisle, so everybody goes down to Donaghadee.
“I have kids and grandkids, then you’ll have great grandkids coming up, and there’s going to be nothing out here for them. I don’t want them to shift back to Belfast, I want them to be here.
“So we thought we need to do something or else the village is going to be a no-go,” he said.
Since last Monday, several decorative works have gotten underway, including painting derelict shopfronts to make Main Street more vibrant and attractive.
“We’ve already started painting the old empty shops. There’s a couple of the shops that we’re going to put brand new boards on and get them all painted in different colours like greens, blues and pinks.
“When you go through Donaghadee, Newcastle and Portrush, you see the wee streets and they’re all different colours and it looks lovely,” Mr Mann said.
“The amount of people that have already said, ‘those shops look well’, and it’s only a coat of paint over old shops, it’s unbelievable the difference it’s made.”
