Bangor Flagship Centre hosts dog search and rescue training
A vacant shopping centre in Bangor, County Down, has become the unusual location for dog search and rescue training.
The Flagship Centre is a new training venue for the K9 Search and Rescue Northern Ireland team.
The all-volunteer canine search and rescue team specialise in providing searches for coastal, urban, rural and disaster response.
The team previously had no dedicated space to train the dogs.
During the 1990s, the Flagship was a key retail centre in the now city of Bangor, but the shopping centre on Main Street closed its doors to the public back in February 2019.
The 157,000 sq ft centre and 430-space car park site was then sold in a multi-million-pound deal to developers in August 2021.
The team at Brooklands Property are trying to get the shopping centre reopened, but for now emergency dog handlers and their four-legged friends are the only ones using the site.
Video Journalist Mike McBride
