Northern Area Plan 2016
Coleraine Borough: Portstewart Town Centre

The Plan seeks to promote a vibrant town centre, which will function more effectively as a focus for the local community, but also provide a positive experience for many visitors both from the Region and from abroad. The town centre has potential to further enhance its role of servicing North Coast tourism. The retail household survey of summer 2003, indicated that the town is performing satisfactorily as a local retail centre, and also benefits from visitor spending. Its vitality and viability however remains vulnerable to external competition particularly from further suburban retail development.

A town centre boundary is defined, within which all retail development will normally be required to locate (see Policy C 1). This has been defined to exclude all significant housing groups, which are considered to have a viable future as a residential environment. Within this town centre boundary a considerable number of development opportunities are identified including gap sites, properties requiring redevelopment or major refurbishment to bring them back into beneficial use.