A Newry playground named after an IRA hunger striker has been left out of development plans by the local council.
A recent active and healthy communities committee was provided with a new four year capital programme for council owned play parks identified for upgrades.
The plan does not mention the Raymond McCreesh Park which has been at the centre of some controversy since it was renamed after the Camlough man.
Children in the Patrick Street area, where the Raymond McCreesh Park is located, were provided with a consolidation playground at Martin’s Lane in 2022 which serves both them and young people in the Barcroft area. The Martin’s Lane park is around half a mile away. The future of the McCreesh site, which is still in recreational use, remains unclear.
A council spokesperson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “The McCreesh Park site remains on Newry, Mourne and Down District Council’s surplus asset register and is subject to the D1 process.”
The D1 process is a stage in the NMDDC’s work that involves the submission of a developed business case.
It is now over a year since (September 2023) councillors were given a behind closed doors update on efforts to dispose of the ‘surplus assets’ site at Patrick Street.
In open session the then Sinn Fein chairperson of the strategy, policy and resources committee, Leeanne McEvoy, said: “During the surplus assets update, it was confirmed that the council’s Patrick Street site has had no interest.”
In October 2018, NMDDC put McCreesh Park up for sale as “surplus to requirements” despite community support for the playground being retained resulting in a court case in 2019.
A judicial review finding stated that residents would need to be consulted on the future of the playground.
The city centre park has been a long-running source of controversy, with unionists bitterly opposed to it being named after a republican paramilitary in 2001.
McCreesh was one of 10 republican prisoners who died in the 1981 Maze Prison hunger strikes.
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