Debate contribution: Belfast City Centre Dereliction

Debate contribution by Mr Colin McGrath on 18 November 2024.

MLA

Mr Colin McGrath

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

18 November 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Belfast City Centre Dereliction

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4656772

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It would be too easy to say that the DUP looks back to people from 200 or 300 years ago to ask for their impression of how to do things today. I hope that we can get the DUP modernised and moved right up to date. The debate has been positive in the sense that, while we have different views and opinions on the outcome, everyone has the view that they want to see Belfast and, as has been referenced, town centres across Northern Ireland being vibrant places: places that people enjoy; places where people can work; and places that work for people. We want families and others to be able to go into the town and city centres and for those to be enjoyable places in which people can spend time. It is fairly obvious from the example of the Tribeca site that something is not working. It has been like that for a long time. It is a grim part of the town, and the difficulty is that, if you have a business in that area, you are impacted on by the fact that the area is running down continually. Nobody wants to go to that part of town. That perpetrates the issue, and the dereliction moves further and further from the site at which it started. We know that that level of decay and squalor can spread and make places less attractive. I hope that people will see as a constructive thing the fact that we are here, discussing the matter in another Opposition day debate and talking about how we can challenge it and that we are having conversations and trying to find solutions that will help our cities and towns right across the North. Tools are at the Executive's disposal that can help drive the regeneration of the city centre and maybe leave a more positive and lasting legacy. We referenced the fact that a vacant land tax would help to incentivise people to take up premises. People are saying, "We do not think that that would do anything". Look at what not doing it has done. It is not helping. The place is not improving by people doing nothing, sitting back, not helping and saying "Ach, sure, maybe the council will get around to it. Maybe the Executive will get together so that all the Departments will do something." Those places have been lying like that for years and years, and they have not been improving. Maybe we need to think about doing something different and doing something in a different way to try and help.

I am really short of time, so please be quick.

I would say that the Department should get its finger out and do something about it. Really, it should be down to that. It is down to Departments and public bodies. They should be doing something about it. They should be leading by example and actually using what they can in the likes of, for example, 2 Royal Avenue.

The place at 2 Royal Avenue has been developed into a venue for arts and culture purposes, and it is providing those services. A building that was run down has been taken and turned into something that can be used for the good of the community, so there is an incentive for public bodies to do that type of work. The amendment references a number of arterial routes. Mind you, you could find a common thread in the amendment, because if you look at the routes that are referenced, you will see that they may be from a particular side of the city or cover particular parts of the community. Much more could have been made of the amendment. The amendment tries to water down what we are suggesting. By simply highlighting an issue, it merely asks Ministers to actually do their job. Ministers should be out working with their colleagues to see whether there is a way to help regenerate and revitalise areas. Having an amendment that says that Ministers should be meeting and trying to help areas feels like we are just asking them to do their job. It simply asks for a "review", so I feel that the amendment is a bit weak. It does not have that punch behind it that would help to bring some sort of resolution to the problems that we can see. There were references in the debate to there being a number of new issues to consider. Those include COVID-19 and what has happened as a result of that and the reprofiling of high streets, which we are all aware of. That is happening everywhere, not just in Belfast. My colleague from South Down referenced that as well. We in Downpatrick are suffering from that lack of footfall because people have changed their shopping habits, so we need to try to reprioritise how we deliver things in the high street. However, that will not happen if big empty buildings are left lying for years. Buildings on two of the corners of the main junction in Downpatrick are lying empty. One has been lying empty, doing nothing, for decades, nearly. It is right in the heart of our town, so if something could be done to try to incentivise those who own the land to do something with that building, it could help to turn around and repurpose the high street, which we also need to do. There were some references to schemes such as Living Over the Shop. We did that successfully in Downpatrick. I am sure that it would also work in Belfast. It was done for a number of years, and it helped to encourage a wee bit more footfall in the city centres and town centres in the evening because people were living there, rather than them just being work-based areas. There was reference to the carrot and the stick. As I said, the problem may be that those are the wrong way around. There has been too much carrot and not enough stick. That is why we are where we are with so many of the town centres left languishing. I accept the Minister's saying that there were no data sets from which to get the information to deliver some of what we have asked for. Let us do it. Let us not always just look and say, "We cannot do that". That does not reflect a forward-looking Executive that will try to deliver for our local communities, which is what the SDLP wants to do.

1,095 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:32 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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