Cookstown, Mid Ulster, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

Business | Colleges

🇮🇪 Cookstown is a small town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is the fourth largest town in the county. It, along with Magherafelt and Dungannon, is one of the main towns in the Mid-Ulster council area. It was founded around 1620 when the townlands in the area were leased by an English ecclesiastical lawyer, Dr. Alan Cooke, from the Archbishop of Armagh, who had been granted the lands after the Flight of the Earls during the Plantation of Ulster. It was one of the main centres of the linen industry west of the River Bann, and until 1956, the processes of flax spinning, weaving, bleaching and beetling were carried out in the town.

Cookstown's main street hosts an open-air market each Saturday.

In 1994 the tree-lined boulevard thought up by James and William Stewart was restored and a scheme of regeneration saw the creation of green space, flowerbeds and restored shop frontage. The tree-lined boulevard is the basis of the towns fantastic festive Christmas lighting. With Ulster's industry now substantially defunct, the town began to attract instead financial investment from shopping and tourism. In 2000, the Burnavon Arts and Cultural Centre opened on the site of the former Town Hall on the Burn Road and began to attract large scale cultural and artistic events to the town whilst a year later, a development scheme began which saw the former LMS Railway Terminus turned into a retail park. In 2003 Cookstown District Council in conjunction with Cookstown Town Centre Forum launched Cookstown's ten-year Town Centre Regeneration Strategy and Action Plan which details a range of short, medium and long range regeneration actions.

Today, Cookstown has been almost completely regenerated with plans for further regeneration work to be carried out throughout the town centre. Another large retail and office development on Molesworth Street was built in 2007 on the site of the former Market Yard. The old Gunning and Moore Weaving Mill at Broadfields has been transformed into a retail park. Plans were also passed for two more major retail and residential/ penthouse developments in the Orritor Street/ Burn Road area of the town. Further development is planned for the site of the former Daintyfit factory.

The town's central location and many hotels has meant that it is a location for conferences and meetings involving delegates from across Northern Ireland. It was the location for the Mid-Ulster Sports Arena (established in 2003) and the now cancelled planned Northern Ireland Community Safety College to accommodate the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue and the Northern Ireland Prison Service. Cookstown currently has more than a hundred types of businesses. Of the direct retailing businesses some two-thirds are independent, largely family-owned concerns which give the town's retailing a distinctive appearance. The town has taken a long-term view to regeneration and Cookstown District Council in conjunction with Cookstown Town Centre Forum appointed a Town Strategy Manager to implement Cookstown's Town Centre Regeneration Strategy.

Cookstown bills itself as the 'Retail Capital of Mid Ulster', through a brand identity (Cookstown – Looking Good, Looking Great) and aggressive marketing of the town locally and nationally. The town was also one of the first in Northern Ireland to produce a ten-year Urban Design Strategy (2007), an aspirational framework for all future town centre development. The Cookstown Town Centre Living Initiative (LOTS) Scheme (2006–2011) offers substantial grant assistance to reinvigorate unused or derelict space above shops into modern residential living accommodation is considered to be one of the most successful schemes of any town in Northern Ireland. The Cookstown Town Centre Street Entertainment Programme (2008–present) promotes the town's family-friendly appeal and encouraging people either to visit for the first time or to prolong a regular visit. While in late 2009 the civic heart of Cookstown, the Burn Road has benefited from an Environmental Improvement Scheme and now hosts outdoor events including the Cookstown Comedy Festival.

Cookstown District Council have continued to invest in the town, opening the Davagh Forest Trails - one of just three high-spec mountain biking trails in Northern Ireland - in 2013.

Business • Finbarr O'Neill - Irish American businessman, former CEO of J.D. Power.

Colleges • The Loughry Campus of the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise is 2 mi (3.2 km) south of Cookstown. • South West College (technical college) • Northern Ireland Community Safety College when built will provide all training facilities for the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service and the Northern Ireland Prison Service. This college will be built 2 mi (3.2 km) south of Cookstown at Desertcreat (close to Loughry College).

Cookstown, Mid Ulster, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom 
<b>Cookstown, Mid Ulster, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom</b>
Image: Kenneth Allen

Cookstown has a population of over 11,599 people. Cookstown also forms one of the centres of the wider Mid Ulster District which has a population of over 147,392 people.

To set up a UBI Lab for Cookstown see: https://www.ubilabnetwork.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/UBILabNetwork

Text Atribution: Wikipedia Text under CC-BY-SA license

Antipodal to Cookstown is: 173.255,-54.647

Locations Near: Cookstown -6.745,54.647

🇮🇪 Dungannon -6.77,54.5 d: 16.4  

🇮🇪 Magherafelt -6.606,54.755 d: 15  

🇮🇪 Coleraine -6.667,55.017 d: 41.4  

🇮🇪 Craigavon -6.388,54.447 d: 32  

🇮🇪 Monaghan -6.967,54.233 d: 48.2  

🇮🇪 Ballymena -6.28,54.86 d: 38.1  

🇮🇪 Antrim -6.212,54.718 d: 35.2  

🇮🇪 Omagh -7.309,54.598 d: 36.7  

🇮🇪 Newry -6.342,54.177 d: 58.4  

🇮🇪 Derry -7.317,54.983 d: 52.3  

Antipodal to: Cookstown 173.255,-54.647

🇳🇿 Dunedin 170.474,-45.884 d: 19021  

🇳🇿 Invercargill 168.373,-46.413 d: 19037.2  

🇳🇿 Queenstown 168.658,-45.033 d: 18897  

🇳🇿 Christchurch 172.617,-43.517 d: 18776.6  

🇳🇿 Canterbury 171.58,-43.543 d: 18774.5  

🇳🇿 Richmond 173.183,-41.333 d: 18534.7  

🇳🇿 Nelson 173.284,-41.269 d: 18527.5  

🇳🇿 Wellington 174.767,-41.283 d: 18524.9  

🇳🇿 Hutt 174.917,-41.217 d: 18516.7  

🇳🇿 Lower Hutt 174.917,-41.217 d: 18516.7  

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