The 1936 Ards TT motor racing disaster, in which eight people were killed, is to be memorialised with a plaque in Newtownards.
Elected representatives at Ards and North Down Council’s Planning Committee this week agreed to the erection of a memorial to the eight people who were killed on Church Street, Newtownards during the 1936 Ards TT race. At that time it was the biggest and most popular car racing event in the world. 40 people were injured, and it became the last year the event was hosted in Newtownards.
The acrylic full colour A3 plaque will cost around £1,000, and will be placed on the wall outside Ards Hospital, Church Street. It will show a picture from the times, and will be inscribed “In memory of the eight spectators who died as a result of a crash during the Ards TT race on 5 September 1936.” There were no objections to the plaque.
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The Ards TT race, running from 1928 to 1936, was a motorsport street circuit, attracting audiences of half a million people along the route which was just over 13 miles, forming a triangle and travelling through Dundonald, Comber and Newtownards. At the time it was the largest attended sport in Northern Ireland.
The final race was held in very poor weather and saw contestants spinning off the road in all directions. Local driver Jack Chambers skidded on the Newtownards railway bridge while approaching the Strangford Arms on Church Street, Newtownards, demolishing a lamp post and careering into the crowd standing against a wall. Chambers was not seriously injured.
The approval took almost four years after the original 2018 council motion to erect the plaque. A council report explains: “Due to difficulties in identifying the most appropriate Trust Manager who could progress this request and the implications of Covid, Council Officers met with the South Eastern Health Trust Estates Managers at Ards Hospital on 24 May 2021.
“Following the site meeting, the Trust confirmed that they would be willing to grant an approval in principle for the erecting of the TT Memorial Plaque as per attached design subject to finalisation of details and a Licence Agreement.”
DUP Alderman Stephen McIlveen told the committee: “It is not the planning department’s fault, but four years to get this erected is an extremely long time. There has been another motion to celebrate the centenary of the Ards TT, so I am glad we will have this up in time for that.”
He added: “It is very appropriate to have the plaque there and I am pleased there is a recommendation to pass something that we have missed in the town. There are other plaques for the TT races, one of them in Dundonald where the race started, and one in Comber at Butcher’s Corner.
“But we have not had anything at or near the site of this dreadful tragedy, which ended up cancelling such a huge event. The TT was the premier world event for car racing, bigger than Formula One, and footage is available for anyone to see of the Pathé News story about what happened that day.”
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