Linen Industry To Live Again In Hilden Mill Regeneration

Northern Ireland's previously world-beating textile manufacturing sector is to be reborn - but this time as a picturesque, riverside apartment and leisure complex.

The former Coats Barbour textiles factory in Hilden, near Lisburn is set to be transformed into 605 apartments of various shapes and sizes, 15,000 sq ft of light industry units and 17,000 sq ft of offices.

Planning permission is now being sought for the imaginative, £100m regeneration, which, if approved, will also include a museum focusing on the history of the linen industry along with a riverside bar/restaurant, a gym, crèche, café while tourist-related retail space is also planned.

In addition, community meeting rooms will be created and restoration/replacement of canal and river bridges will commence.

Around 150 jobs will be generated, which a long way from the industry's heyday, when Lisburn's linen industry giant would have employed well over 1,000 at the site, which itself dates back nearly 200 years.

Lisburn City Council architects Consarc Conservation and Ulster planning specialists Turley Associates will be involved in the scheme.

Dawson Stelfox, senior architect with Consarc, said the regeneration would combine authentic restoration of the listed mill buildings with contemporary architecture to create a new urban mixed use village at Hilden.

Lisburn mayor James Tinsley said the redevelopment will assist the council in realising the vision for Lisburn's Lagan Corridor together with the regeneration of Hilden village and the re-opening of the Lagan Canal.

(GK/SP/BMcC)