A NEW memorial is being built along a main road in a loyalist area of north Belfast.
Work began recently along Shore Road opposite the constituency office of DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds.
The proposed First World War remembrance garden has received £24,000 of council funding and replaces a smaller roadside monument.
The land was purchased last year by the nearby Hubb Community Resource Centre.
A Belfast council spokeswoman said: “Belfast City Council through its Local Investment Fund has contributed £24,000 for the creation of a World War One garden of remembrance on the Shore Road.
“A section of the site will also be developed into a pocket park for the area which is being funded through the Alpha Fund.”
The Hubb group said the new structure would be a “remembrance memorial”, but declined to say who it would be used to commemorate.
A spokesman described the memorial as a “community-based, community-supported project” and said it would be formally unveiled in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile further along the street, loyalist flags remain on a lamppost outside an Asda supermarket that some years ago was embroiled in controversy over a tribute to loyalist double killer Billy Hunter.
The Loyalist Communities Council, a group backed by the main loyalist paramilitary organisations, had called for flags displayed during the parades season to be removed after ‘Ulster Day’ on September 28.
But several loyalist flags including a UVF flag remain on a lamppost outside Asda. A former Asda employee, Hunter (56) died in 2012 after taking his own life. In 1978 he was jailed for 14 years for murdering brothers John (29) and Thomas (19) McErlane.
