News 2007

The Council has announced that Ballymoney Museum, based at the Town Hall in Townhead Street, will close on 1st September to enable the Interpretative Fit Out of the exhibition galleries etc, a £400,000 project, towards which the Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded £300,000. Works are expected to be complete by Spring 2009.

Haley Sharpe Design, Leicester, has been commissioned by Council to develop the schematic design and they have been working closely with Councillors and Council Officers for the past year to firm up their design proposals. These are now at an advanced stage and Council is ready to tender the work to enable the fit out to take place over the next six months.

When the Museum opens its doors again, visitors will be able to experience two new permanent exhibitions telling the Story of Ballymoney and the Story of Road Racing as well as a series of temporary exhibitions. A new Local History Resource Area will provide the opportunity to explore the stories of the people, places, genealogy and the history of the Ballymoney Borough.

Ballymoney Museum has successfully completed the necessary requirements to qualify for the UK Museum, Libraries & Archives Council (MLA) Accreditation Scheme. The museum had to demonstrate that it met high standards in the care of the collection, museum management, and the quality of the information and services it offered to its users. With support from the Causeway Museum Service, the necessary information was compiled by museum staff in a series of detailed reports before final submission to the museum’s UK governing body in London.

Museum’s 150th birthday
Council are also optimistically waiting for notification from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) concerning the major grant application to develop the exhibition gallery and public resource areas. If this HLF application is successful, by late 2008 the Borough will have one of the finest heritage venues in the north of Ireland. This will also be a tremendous boost to the museum’s birthday celebrations as it proudly draws closer to its 150th year (1860 – 2010), an anniversary that few other public museums can claim.

As you would expect concerning a website the work to develop and improve it never ceases and such is the case with visitballymoney.

With the support of the EU Building Sustainable Prosperity programme Council is continuing to develop this site and whilst there has been a lot of work done very recently behind the scene to restructure and enhance the aesthetics and user friendliness of the site, over the coming months you will see even more changes, changes which it is hoped will find favour with you the users.

One of the new additions to the site is the introduction of this BLOG, which we hope you will find informative.

Floral window and hanging basket displays add to town atmosphere

Over 170 floral baskets have been placed by local businesses on the first storey window sills of their property this year in a Council and DSD supported programme to enhance the attractiveness of the town to shoppers, both residents and visitors.

The programme, which is in its second year, has been extended significantly with a 40% increase in the number of businesses participating and the additional floral arrangements have certainly added to the spectacle of colour throughout the town in the form of the hanging baskets and planters provided by Council.

Barring the onset of an early cold snap it is hoped that the flowers will adorn the town for some weeks still. However plans are in place to continue with the programme next year again when it is hoped that even more local businesses will participate.

…and that’s official; Ballymoney recorded the highest rating for friendliness in a recent retail survey of all towns in the Northern Area Plan area.

Almost two-thirds of respondents cited the friendliness of the people of the town and the staff in the shops as top of their list for good features of the town. A further 36% referred to the good atmosphere of the town placing Ballymoney second in that assessment and the town was rated highest in the area for the quality of its customer service.

However these were not the only three high scores recorded by the town in the detailed survey. The cleanliness of the town was also recognised, as was the high level of safety in the town with second place rankings in both categories against all other towns in the area.

The town also scored extremely highly in terms of the facilities provided. Ballymoney had the highest score in the whole area for leisure and sports facilities provision, recognition perhaps of the excellent provision at the Joey Dunlop Leisure Centre and the new Riada Stadium, and was in the top four for children’s play areas as well as being ranked very highly for town centre car parking facilities and highly for accessibility to the town centre.