North Down Borough Council is a Local Council in County Down in Northern Ireland. Its main town is Bangor, 20 km east of Belfast with a population of approximately 55,000. The Council is headquartered in Bangor. Its secondary centre is the former Urban District of Holywood, 8 km northeast of Belfast with a population of approximately 10,000. Most of the remainder of a total population of over 80,000 is in suburban villages along the southern shore of Belfast Lough. The Borough is heavily suburbanised—railway links with Belfast are good and the area has been the domain of well-heeled Belfast commuters since the mid-19th Century. The Borough is often held to be the wealthiest area in Northern Ireland, although there are pockets of deprivation in a string of overspill public housing estates along the Bangor Ring Road.
The borough consists of 4 electoral areas: Abbey, Ballyholme and Groomsport, Bangor West and Holywood. In the 2005 election 25 members were elected from the following political parties: 8 Democratic Unionist Party, 8 Ulster Unionists, 6 Alliance, 1 Green, and 2 Independents. The current mayor until mid-2007 is Councillor Stephen Farry, Alliance, and the Deputy Mayor is Councillor Wesley Irvine Democratic Unionist Party.
The Borough of North Down was formed in 1973 in the local government reorganisation from the old Bangor Urban District, Holywood Urban District, North Down Rural District and part of Castlereagh Rural District.
In elections for the Westminster Parliament it is part of the slightly larger North Down constituency
See Also: Districts of Northern Ireland