Councillors hear townland names to be retained

COUNCILLORS heard at the recent Lisburn Planning Committee meeting that the Minister of the Environment, Alex Attwood, had sent a letter in March advising that the Assembly is calling on each Government Department to promote and retain townland names.
By The Newsroom
Published 22nd May 2012, 16:55 BST

The Assembly passed a motion on October 1 2011 stating “that this Assembly calls upon each Government Department to adopt a policy of using and promoting townland names in all Government correspondence and official documents”.

The letter also advised that the Department will produce an Information Communications Technology Strategy and associated plan designed to identify all existing Departmental databases which do not use Pointer (an address system, introduced by Land & Property Services in conjunction with the Post Office), and scope the potential to have them updated to reference the Pointer database.

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The Minister also said he would encourage all Councils to adopt the approach of having all townlands printed underneath the name of the road on street name signs.

Councillors were advised that this had been Lisburn council’s policy since 2006.

Planning Committee Chairman, Councillor James Tinsley said: “It is good that we already do this and that we can hold onto the old names which mean a lot to the people who have lived there all their lives.”

Related topics:Councillors