Cookstown, NIR - Postcode - BT80 8DF

Description of Cookstown

A little town in Northern Ireland's County Tyrone, Cookstown is worth seeing. With 11,599 residents in 2011, it ranks as the fourth most populous municipality in the county. It is one of the three major towns that make up the Mid-Ulster council region alongside Magherafelt and Dungannon. In the years after the Flight of the Earls and the beginning of the Plantation of Ulster, an English ecclesiastical lawyer named Dr. Alan Cooke leased the townlands in the region from the Archbishop of Armagh. Until 1956, the town served as one of the most important hubs for the linen industry west of the River Bann, with activities including flax spinning, weaving, bleaching, and beetling.

History of Cookstown

In 1994, a scheme of redevelopment saw the construction of green space, flowerbeds, and rebuilt shop facades along the tree-lined boulevard planned by James and William Stewart. The tree-lined boulevard is the basis of the towns outstanding festive Christmas lighting. As the manufacturing sector in Ulster collapsed, the town began to see an influx of cash from the retail and tourist sectors. Opened in the year 2000 on the site of the former Town Hall on Burn Road, the Burnavon Arts and Cultural Centre began to attract major cultural and artistic events to the area, and the following year, a development program began to transform the old LMS Railway Terminus into a shopping center. Short-, medium-, and long-term strategies for revitalizing Cookstown's downtown core were first outlined in 2003, when the Cookstown District Council and the Cookstown Town Centre Forum unveiled their ten-year Town Centre Regeneration Strategy and Action Plan.

The town center of Cookstown is scheduled to get additional regeneration work in the near future. In 2007, the site of the old Market Yard was transformed into a massive commercial and office complex on Molesworth Street. The former Gunning and Moore Weaving Mill in Broadfields is now occupied by a shopping center. Two further big Orritor Street/Burn Road retail and residential/penthouse developments have also had their plans approved. The Daintyfit plant site will undergo more construction in the near future. 

The town's convenient location and abundance of hotels (it boasts no less than four, despite having a population of just over 11,000) have made it a popular venue for conferences and meetings attended by participants from all over Northern Ireland. The Mid-Ulster Sports Arena was built there in 2003, and the Northern Ireland Community Safety College was supposed to be built there in 2008 for the NIPS, NIFR, and NIPS, but was ultimately scrapped. There are currently over a hundred different kinds of companies in Cookstown. About two-thirds of the local shops are privately owned, giving the retail scene in this town its particular character. Taking a long-term approach, the Cookstown District Council and the Cookstown Town Centre Forum have hired a Town Strategy Manager to put into action the town's Town Centre Regeneration Strategy.

Cookstown promotes itself as the "Retail Capital of Mid Ulster" with the slogan "Cookstown - Looking Good, Looking Great" and extensive advertising on a regional, national, and international scale. Also, in 2007, the city was one of the first in Northern Ireland to create an aspirational 10-year Urban Design Strategy for the revitalization of its downtown. One of the most successful programs in Northern Ireland is the Cookstown Town Centre Living Initiative (LOTS) Scheme (2006-2011), which provides sizable grant aid to revitalize underutilized or derelict space above shops into contemporary residential living options. Cookstown's Town Centre Street Entertainment Programme (running since 2008) is aimed at attracting newcomers and enticing long-time residents alike to spend more time in the area. The Burn Road, which was once the city's commercial hub, has undergone an Environmental Improvement Scheme and is now the site of events like the Cookstown Comedy Festival, which attracts thousands of people each year.