Newry City Park Construction Expected to Start in June 2026

Opinion

Newry City has been extremely short of optimism in 2025 but there is grounds for hope that 2026 will see the start of the long awaited and much anticipated Newry City Park at the Albert Basin, a project that will be the catalyst that will kick start Newry's renewal.

Infrastructure timetables in Newry have been known to sustain a certain 'slippage' and the Newry City Centre Regeneration scheme projects are prime examples but currently Newry.ie understands that June 2026 is the date set for park construction to begin meaning that of the three council projects, ie Theatre, Civic Hub and Park it will most likely be the first completed.

That's a far cry from 30 June 2023 when time scales were published in the Minutes of the Newry City Centre Regeneration Programme Board meeting. According to the timetable first to be completed would be the Civic Hub with a commencement date of April 2024 and a completion Date of August 2025. Second to be completed would be the Theatre/ Conference Centre billed to start April 2024 and be completed January 2026. The last one to be completed was the Newry City Park which they gave a timetable of works commencing July 2025 and completed in May 2027. It certainly doesn't reflect well on our council that the most popular element, the park was the one they planned to leave to last but it seems that is all now turned on its head.

It's a long 11 years since community group Newry 2020 started the campaign for a 15 acre city park at the derelict site on the Albert Basin and 8 years since Council unanimously voted to build it in November 2017 but with the planning permission application now hoped to be passed in early 2026 it's expected that this will facilitate work starting June 2026 with an expected completion date of March 2028.

Funding of £18.6m is already in place for Phase One of the park with Council only having to contribute £2.4m of this, the rest coming from NI Executive’s Complementary fund.

Newry, Mourne and Down District Council explain on its website "In its 15-acre site at the Albert Basin, Newry City Park will be a destination leisure space for the people of Newry and beyond. Among the features in Phase One of the park development are changing places facilities, an inclusive play park, a sensory garden, an outdoor event space, water and urban sports areas, a plaza area for artisan markets and pop-up vending locations. These are complemented by green space, woodland areas, walking, cycling and running paths, with the park also upgrading links to Victoria Lock and the Greenway."

Let us hope there are no further delays to this essential infrastructure project and this time next year the earth (on site) has well and truly moved for us all.