17 Sep 2014
Northern Ireland looks to resurrect long-forgotten heritage attraction
BY Tom Anstey
A visitor attraction in Northern Ireland – constructed in 1902 and once the country’s most popular tourist attraction, drawing even more visitors than the Giant’s Causeway – is looking for a new lease on life with plans for a complete restoration of the cliff path and surrounding area.
The Gobbins cliff path in County Antrim is undergoing a £6m (US$9.7m, €7.5m) redevelopment to restore the Victorian pathway and install a visitor centre, café and playground, with the capacity to run 34 tours of 15 visitors a day.
Larne Borough Council says the project, which started restoration work at the beginning of 2014, must attract at least 70,000 visitors a year in order for the project to break even. The number of daily tours and maximum visitor numbers would mean that at capacity, the cliff path could host 97,230 visitors a year, generating visitor fees of £600,000 (US$973,000, €752,000) annually.
The Victorian-era tubular bridges have been re-imagined with a modern twist
The three-quarter mile path, which was originally linked by a series of unique metal bridges, fell into disrepair during World War Two and closed to the public in 1954.
As part of the reconstruction, the new path will include modern reconstructed versions of the Victorian-era tubular bridges as well as a brand new 25-metre (82-foot) suspension bridge, matching the feats of engineering once evident on the original pathway.
Larne Council has allocated £2.3m (US$3.7m, €2.9m) to the restoration scheme, and a further £200,000 (US$324,000, €250,000) of funding has come from Ulster Garden Villages, while £3.5m (US$5.7m, €4.4m) has been granted through the European Union’s INTERREG IVA Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB).
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