Debate contribution: Belfast Metropolitan College, Castlereagh Campus: Proposed Closure

Debate contribution by Ms Joanne Bunting on 21 May 2024.

MLA

Ms Joanne Bunting

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

21 May 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Belfast Metropolitan College, Castlereagh Campus: Proposed Closure

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4491973

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I am delighted to have secured the debate on an issue that is crucial particularly for but not restricted to my constituency of East Belfast. Towards the end of last year, Belfast Met launched a pre-consultation on the proposed closure of its Castlereagh campus. Castlereagh college, as it is known in our part of the world, is legendary. It has been an institution in more ways than one and in the best possible sense for decades. It would be impossible to overstate the impact that it has had on the people of East Belfast and beyond for generations. After a long, proud history of many decades, it is abhorrent that that proposal is under consideration at all. The rationale offered is the investment that would be required to bring the college up to standard. Belfast Met states that Castlereagh requires £10 million that it simply cannot find for capital and maintenance works. It says that the condition and layout are not in accordance with Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) standards and that the campus is not a modern teaching environment. Some, including me, might suggest that, while an outdated facility is not ideal, it is certainly much better than none. The location of Castlereagh college is first-rate. It affords considerable room for expansion, is widely considered to be the easiest to access of the four Belfast Met colleges and has the benefit of free parking. It is now even more profoundly important for our locality and our economy that our people, young and old, have easy access to training and skills. This campus offers opportunities that the other campuses do not. Naturally, then, I express my opposition to the proposal in the strongest terms. I consider it to be regressive, discriminatory and short-sighted. In truth, I am concerned that the consultation was merely a tick-box exercise to go through the motions for an ill-conceived decision that may already have been taken. Thus far, DUP delegations have met representatives from Belfast Met and the unions, students, employees, other interested parties and the Minister. We will oppose the closure vehemently and at every turn. We will not readily allow our young people to have yet another learning option closed to them. Moreover, skills are essential to the success and growth of Northern Ireland's economy. The proposal will result in poor access to education for those who do not engage well and have not engaged well with traditional education. What about those who advocate an alternative pathway to academia for those who learn in a different way? The proposal would see literally thousands of people have such opportunities denied to them. Something just does not add up. What is to be gained from the closure? It should be noted that Belfast Met's 10-year preventative maintenance programme states that the campus has been maintained to a good standard and that the £10 million cost of maintenance and modernisation is over a 10-year period and is a worst-case scenario. As I understand it, there is insufficient room or capacity to transfer all the courses and people to the Titanic campus. It must be pointed out that the Castlereagh campus is the all-island centre of excellence in information technology (IT) and is still growing exponentially. The proposal, for the sake of £10 million, flies in the face of the Northern Ireland Executive's plans to grow our economy and close the skills gap. It runs entirely contrary to the 10X Economy strategy that was hailed by key business and educational leaders. We seek to move away from the prevalence of and dependence on public-sector employment to having a better balance with increased employment in the private sector, increased inward investment and increased skills but with one less college. It is folly. How can our economy grow when we shut down the very places in which skills are taught? We do not build by contracting those facilities. What message does it send to inward investors? Does this look like a Northern Ireland that is open for business and seeking to upskill the workforce for potential employers? In addition, with the potential closure, Belfast Met will have further stripped this side of the Lagan of educational facilities. East Belfast has already lost the Tower Street campus, Rupert Stanley College and the Dundonald government training centre, on top of the loss of several secondary schools. By the way, since its opening, Belfast Met has flagged the Titanic campus as a city centre campus. Now, it seeks to rebrand the campus as an east Belfast location. Forcing people from the east to travel further distances or face a parking charge of £12 per day at the Titanic campus, which is prohibitive for many, could prevent some people's access to learning altogether. Accessibility is a significant issue. Queens Road is already notorious for traffic problems during rush hour, and those would be exacerbated by additional numbers of students. Public transport may well be suggested as the solution. However, it has long been recognised that public transportation outwith the city centre is not easy. Those familiar with south and east Belfast will know that going "down" and "in" is fine but that going "across" is not so fine. The Glider may well have a dedicated service to Queens Road and the Titanic campus, but a traveller from the east of the city must reach the Upper Newtownards Road first, and the park-and-ride at Dundonald is already at capacity. Castlereagh college has the easiest access of all four Met colleges and benefits from on-site car parking, a considerable advantage to students and staff alike. When considering the courses moved from Castlereagh to other sites — incidentally, some of Belfast Met's most popular courses — it is not a leap to ponder whether Belfast Met has deliberately run down its Castlereagh campus to achieve this outcome. That question is on the lips of many who have spoken to me, since 75% of joinery courses and all science and plastering courses have moved to the Titanic campus. Decision makers are well aware of the impact of such measures and proposals, including the consequences for enrolment numbers of the surrounding uncertainty, which can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. What message does all this send to young people and parents in East Belfast about the value of education and learning and its prioritisation in the east of the city? What signal does it send about their value and the opportunities afforded to them? In the past 24 years, at least seven educational reports have been written, each concluding on or concerning the educational under-attainment of working-class Protestants, particularly boys. Yet, faced with such facts, Belfast Met is moving to shut down an avenue for such boys to access education in their heartland and in an environment where, for many decades, thousands of boys have been proven to thrive. On issues around attainment, this would never be allowed to happen in the west of the city — it would not even be countenanced as an option — so why is it permissible for the east? Are those in deprivation in the east to lose another avenue to succeed and educate themselves out of it? Significant numbers of people and areas in East Belfast feature in indices of deprivation. The closure of places like the Castlereagh campus will adversely and severely impact people's ability to educate themselves out of poverty, poverty that is multigenerational. Are we to permit further harm to those who are underprivileged? I need not demonstrate the importance of education and pathways other than academia. We all concur on that, so we must not stand idly by when opportunities for those who have disengaged from traditional forms of education and who left educationally disenfranchised after their time in school are lost. We must not ignore the location of the facility or the demographic of the area in which it is placed. Without question, the people most affected by the closure and by the loss of the economic benefits gained by the locale from having the facility will be working-class Protestants. Neither Belfast Met nor the Department can merely skip over the proposal's adverse impact on the Protestant/unionist/loyalist (PUL) community, nor would they if it affected other areas of the city. I am tired of the imbalance and of the mentality towards my part of the city that it will be OK, that it will sustain or that it is fine to be perpetually at the bottom of the pile in Belfast. That is what the statistics bear out. No. East Belfast can absorb only so much, and we are starting to see the consequences of that attitude. I am led to believe, although it has not yet been verified, that there were around 1,200 responses to the consultation, with the vast majority expressing a desire for the campus to remain. What now? What are the next steps? Was there a plan B, or was the plan always closure? If the consultation was not a mere cosmetic exercise and the response, apparently, was clear, what does the governing body do now? Once the college is closed, there is no going back. It cannot be undone, and it will be all the more difficult to engage those who felt that school did not work for them but thrived in a different learning environment. As a result of underfunding, Belfast Met has been forced to consider something radical, but at what long-term cost and damage? It is in the interests of Northern Ireland to allow Castlereagh the opportunity to grow and contribute. People in the east deserve their opportunity to upskill and secure a good job. Castlereagh college has had a long and illustrious history of bringing back to education those who were disenfranchised from it at school. The college, through its different way of learning, has given many young people opportunities. If our economy is to grow, the teaching of skills is essential to that growth. Removing an easily accessible college when there is insufficient space to accommodate those classes in other campuses is appalling, short-sighted, regressive and detrimental to Northern Ireland plc. There is an onus on the Department to step up and step in and on Belfast Met's governing body to rethink and find another way. The campus must not close. I urge the Minister to intervene and assist.

1,721 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:35 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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