A COMBER publican believes his business lies at a ‘forgotten’ part of the town, as he is ineligible for high street funding.
Nicky Caughey, owner of North Down House, has questioned a recent boundary map of Comber town centre published by Ards and North Down Council as part of its Freshen Up Grant.
The grant, which is part of the wider Supporting Thriving High Streets Programme, is aimed at improving the appearance of shopfronts across key town and city centres in the borough, offering them grants to help fund external shopfront painting and power washing of façade and frontage areas.
The criteria outlines that businesses can avail of the funds if they are ‘operating from a commercial property within the city/town centre boundary and are paying commercial rates’.
Hoping to avail of the pot, Mr Caughey looked into the grant only to discover the boundary drawn had completely left out his area of town, on Mill Street.
The 47 year-old said this was not the first time his business, and others in the town, had missed out on funding due to boundary lines, pointing out that his area of the town had been left out of recent footpath upgrading despite major potholes.
“It’s the same, no matter what happens in the town, anywhere from Castle Lane down is just forgotten about,” he said.
He explained how he had been made aware of the funding through a local WhatsApp group.
“I thought it would do no harm to apply, even if it was just a power hose and a touch up,” he said.
“I thought, if they are doing it we might as well take advantage of it and then I looked at who can apply and it’s within the town centre boundary and looked at the map, thinking it won’t include us, and sure enough it doesn’t.”
Mr Caughey stated that his business was located in the town of Comber and said he paid his commercial rates of over £20,000 yearly.
He continued: “We are in Comber on Mill Street. We pay our commercial rates which are quite extortionate and we don’t get anything for them because we also pay £6,000-£7,000 for bin collections and £6,000-£7,000 for water charges a year on top of that.”
Nicky said he felt his business was getting ‘absolutely nothing’, despite the money he pays out to the council, while other businesses were able to get some funding back.
“Our pavement out front is like a patchwork quilt with the potholes in it. It is just a forgotten end of the town to be honest,” he said.
Mr Caughey said he felt discouraged to get involved with town centre events, as everything was aimed at benefitting businesses in the Square.
“This just proves further that they don’t even include us or think we are part of the town,” he said.
“If we weren’t here there would be a lot of people that love eating and dining and having a drink in our place would miss it,” he said, noting how it was a welcome spot for the community, having served Comber since the 1800s.
He said he believed the council needed to extend their boundary lines to ensure they were including every business within the town postcode.
“It should stretch as far as every business in the town and that for me is the bottom of the Glen Road and right up Railway Street to the end of it, and back across down High Street to the town – surely that opens the boundary right up to the town,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Ards and North Down Council stated that the geographical boundary for the Freshen Up Grant was set by the Department for Communities and the council had ‘no opportunity’ to extend the schemes beyond the boundary drawn.
They said: “Both the Glow Up Grant and Freshen Up Grant are strands of the same business support programme funded by the Department for Communities and supported by Ards and North Down Borough Council.
“The geographical boundary applied to both schemes is set by the Department for Communities as the town centre boundary as designated by the relevant Area Plan. The Council has no opportunity to extend the schemes beyond these limits.
“The City and Town Centre boundaries will be reviewed as part of the second formal document in the Local Development Plan, the Local Policies Plan.”
