Most of Bangor business park lies empty for 10 years as big companies back away from site - MLA calls on Invest NI to change rules and let small businesses have a chance

The 19-acre site was zoned off for large-scale industrial use, but none of it has been bought or built on in the last decade.

Balloo South Business Park on Enterprise Road was intended to house major companies and substantial warehouses, but large amounts of it remain unused.

Run by Invest NI, it’s supposed to lure in big players by offering substantial parcels of land ripe for building on, sweetening that with the addition that projects can be waved through planning approval as the area’s already zoned for industrial use.

Although one large warehouse and a handful of smaller buildings were constructed after it first opened, large tracts lie fallow – little more than empty patches of waste ground.

Answering questions from area DUP MLA Peter Martin, Economy Minister Conor Murphy admitted that in the last 10 years “no land has been sold nor developed” at the site.

The Minister added: “Invest NI will continue to market the estate as an attractive investment location and pursue property interests from those businesses meeting its intervention criteria.”

For Mr Martin, however, the protracted failure to attract large-scale companies means it’s time to give the smaller guys a go.

He argues that local development bodies providing property for new start-ups and small businesses seeking to expand would be able to make good use of the site – but they’re prevented from doing so by Invest NI’s insistence on larger firms.

"Other organisations are keen to take the land and build new units, and North Down would benefit from the economic boost that development of this site could provide,” he said.

"Invest NI’s new strategy is to focus outside the greater Belfast area. If a 19-acre site with no land sold or developed for 10 years was them focusing on North Down, what will it be like for us when their focus is elsewhere?

“They need to have a serious rethink of the impact their lack of action is having on local economic growth.”

Pointing to recent commitments to develop new property programmes, an Invest NI spokeswoman said they’re “happy to explore options with local stakeholders to maximise the potential of Balloo South Business Park”.