Clarawood
| |
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Entrance to Clarawood from Knock Carriageway | |
Location within
County Down | |
County | |
Country | Northern Ireland |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | Belfast |
Postcode district | BT5 |
Dialling code | 028 |
Police | Northern Ireland |
Fire | Northern Ireland |
Ambulance | Northern Ireland |
UK Parliament | |
NI Assembly | |
Clarawood is a housing estate in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is located in the east of the city and incorporates the neighbouring Richhill development. Its name is probably derived from An Chlárach ( Irish: the place of flat-topped hills). [1] It is located off Knock Road (A55).
The Northern Ireland Housing Executive, the public housing authority for Northern Ireland, commissioned and published a report about segregation in the estates; the report was based on national census data gathered between 1971 and 2001 and used 100m cells as the smallest unit. The report included the following figures for Clarawood: [2]: 24, 37, 41, 46, 50
As of 2015 [update], the Housing Executive reported on it stock of housing units; it reported that Clarawood contained 591 residences (bungalows, maisonettes, flats, and houses), 313 of which were owned by the Housing Executive and 278 of which had been sold. [3]: 80
Robert Bell Primary School was built to serve about 180 students; as of 1984 it was slated to be closed. [4]
Part of the closed school's facilities were made into a school for children with special needs, the Clarawood School, and part was made into a community centre called the Anne Napier Centre. [5]
As of 2013 [update] the Clarawood School provided education for children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties; it provided full-time education for 19 children, part-time education for 14 children, and educational support 137 pupils via an outreach program. [6]
The Anne Napier Centre apparently closed around 2004; [5] in 2009 the Clarawood Community Association, which had been formed in 2003 to organize and advocate for the residents of the neighborhood, [7] the Belfast City Council, and the Belfast Education and Library Board came to an agreement to allow the community association to lease the facility for use as a community centre. [5]
The Oak Partnership was formed by several churches and the YMCA in 1999 and in 2002 it opened its Oak Centre in 2 former shops. [8] The Oak Partnership was one of the twenty winners from around Ireland in Cooperation Ireland's Pride of Place awards for 2014. [9]
Clarawood has its own park called Clarawood Millennium Park [10] that was improved in the late 1990s under a program called "Belfast 2000: A city with a landscape (Northern Ireland)" that was run by the city government in conjunction with the Millennium Commission; the program developed 6 parks, 3 in West Belfast and three in the east, all in areas "which suffered through the Troubles and four of the six are in areas with high levels of deprivation." [11] [12]: 46–48 Clarawood also has its own wood. [13] Many of the estate's trees are protected by a Local Landscape Policy Order. [14]
Flooding periodically affected the bottom of the estate along with much of East Belfast; floods were particularly severe in 2012. [15] [16] As a result, the Rivers Agency the city government created a flood alleviation scheme. [16] Part of that scheme included creation of the Connswater Community Greenway Project, which included rerouting the Knock River and the creation of parkland connecting Orangefield Park to Clarawood. [17]
The estate is served by Translink Metro bus route number 4e Gilnahirk via Bloomfield & Clarawood [18] and an Easibus service to Connswater. [19]
Jim Gray (UDA member), a Northern Irish loyalist and the East Belfast brigadier of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), was murdered at his father's home in Clarawood in 2005. [20]