A £60m overhaul of the heart of a Co Down city that’s already decades late will finally start for real in early September, the people behind the scheme have pledged.

The new promise comes after a false start at the end of June, when Stormont officials announced work had begun on Queen’s Parade in Bangor – but that turned out to be putting up a temporary cabin before breaking for summer.

Supposed to turn around the fortunes of the Co Down city’s struggling seafront, the revamp has been on the cards since the 1990s. It’s now promised that workmen will properly get on site during the first week of September, when a large free car park that will host much of the first phase of construction will be sealed off to the public.

The car park is set to be demolished and filled in to create a pedestrianised area called Marine Gardens. The conglomerate behind the project, Bangor Marine, now says the city’s residents will begin to see substantial progress on site from August 28, with the car park to close at the end of the following week.

placeholder image — An impression of how the Queen's Parade development on Bangor seafront is supposed to look. The first phase involves demolishing a large free waterfront car park to make way for a pedestrian area, which is now promised to begin in earnest in the first week of September. Photo: Bangor Marine

Said a spokesman: “We are now seeing the start of the rollout of this transformative project, which will put Bangor on the road to long-term and sustainable economic regeneration.

“We are pleased to be able to put the delays of the past behind us and move forward to recreate Marine Gardens and regenerate Queen's Parade.

“Bangor Marine is fully committed to ensuring Bangor reaches its full potential with a development that returns the city to its status as a premier coastal destination for residents and visitors. We are delighted to be making meaningful progress on the ground.”

At the start of June final legal agreements allowing the building work to get under way were signed at Stormont, at which point officials promised work would begin before the end of the month while forecasting the entire project should be built by late summer 2028.

But the start of work turned out to be putting up a portable cabin before breaking, which dumbfounded Bangor residents who had expected to see diggers moving in to make the long-awaited scheme a reality.

The project’s first phase will see a large seafront car park demolished to make way for a new pedestrian-friendly area with green lawns, an event space, a children’s play area, and food and drink kiosks. Even though construction has been announced as being under way on that site, DfC officials say the car park will stay open over the two-week holiday period.

Apartments, retail and office space follow on the main body of the site, with a final phase constructing a cinema and tourist draw ‘destination building’. The project is supposed to be complete by late summer 2028.

Many different designs and ideas have been put forward for Queen’s Parade over the decades. Buildings on Bangor’s main seafront were demolished in the early years of this century to make way for the project, yet little has been done with a site that was at one point was voted Northern Ireland’s biggest eyesore in a TV poll.