Northern Area Plan 2016
Coleraine Borough: Portrush

The Regional Development Strategy published in September 2001 identifies Portrush as a small town with a specialist tourism role as a seaside resort. By 2001 the town had a permanent population of 6,345, although with a sizeable student population and a large number of staying visitors the number usually present is significantly greater than this, and probably peaks at nearly 20,000 in the summer.

Not only is Portrush physically close to Coleraine, but along with Portstewart the three towns function effectively as a single urban area with a permanent population of approaching 40,000. As such, Portrush is part of a local cluster of hubs, contributing to the synergy of a larger urban complex. It provides a wide range of specialist leisure facilities, including a thriving entertainment and catering sector which is of regional significance.

In the 15 years from mid 1988 to mid 2004, a total of 1,420 dwellings were completed in the town. This is more than twice the 640 dwelling completions postulated by the North East Area Plan for the period from 1988 to 2002. The relatively high rate of house construction over the past 15 years has resulted in a slightly larger permanent population than anticipated, but primarily has facilitated the rapid growth of second homes in the town. In 1989 there were an estimated 386 second homes (15% of all dwellings). By 2001 this had more than doubled to an estimated 855 (25% of all dwellings). There has been major residential expansion on green-field sites to the south of the town in a broad arc from Coleraine Road to Ballywillan. A remarkable feature of the town since 1988, however, has been the very high proportion of brown-field development, mostly on the Peninsula where 435 dwellings have been completed, that is 31% of the total.

Portrush is 8 kilometres north of Coleraine. It is 95 kilometres north west of Belfast and 55 kilometres north east of Londonderry with links by the trunk roads and the railway of the Northern Corridor.

Originally a modest sized fishing village, it developed into a fashionable seaside resort following the arrival of the railway from Belfast in 1855. Visitors in the Victorian era were attracted by the resort’s dramatic peninsula setting flanked by two major beaches and proximity to the Giant’s Causeway, with a direct connection after 1883 by an electric powered tram, and superb golf links. By the Edwardian era the town had all the trappings of a well appointed holiday resort; fine hotels, bath houses, gardens with bandstands, promenades, a large and fashionable department store, and a rebuilt, enlarged, railway station in Stockbroker Tudor style. A century later Portrush remains a popular visitor destination although, day-trippers, caravanners and the occupiers of second homes now dominate the local tourist market.

Despite major changes to tourism throughout the Post War period, the town continues to thrive. While there has been a steady decline in the quantity of hotel and guesthouse accommodation, there has been considerable improvement in the quality of the remaining accommodation. There was rapid growth up until the 1970s of static caravans, and subsequently of holiday homes. The town continues to have a wide range of leisure and entertainment facilities. In addition there has been a sustained expansion of its residential function, albeit increasingly functioning as a suburb of Coleraine.