Debate contribution: Belfast's Night-time Economy

Debate contribution by Miss Deirdre Hargey on 4 February 2025.

MLA

Miss Deirdre Hargey

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

4 February 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Belfast's Night-time Economy

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4779661

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I welcome this important conversation. As with our daytime economy, we need to look at the issues in terms of the wider regeneration of our city centre in order to unlock its full potential at night-time and throughout the day. We all want a safe, connected, inclusive and vibrant city centre in which people can live, work and socialise as well as visit. Therefore, collaboration and a joined-up approach are key. We also need the ability to be innovative and to adapt to an ever-changing environment, recognising the increasing role that our night-time economy plays. Belfast city centre has seen much change and challenge: economic downturns, the Primark fire, COVID, working from home and, indeed, poverty and inequality. Many factors that contribute to the problems can also contribute to the solutions, such as safety in our city, its cleanliness, the public realm, city-centre living and, indeed, increasing overnight stays in the city. There is also historical severance and defensive planning, which is an issue that I raised last week, and whether we can re-stitch those inner-city communities into the city core. I am proud to be a resident and a representative of one of the working-class inner-city communities that form our city centre. We also need to look at infrastructure and transport, our public realm and wider regeneration, as well as our cultural venues and assets and leisure provision. We have Michael, Belfast's night tsar, who is here today, and we have the night-time commission, which is looking at the night-time economy more broadly. We have public policy through the local development plan (LDP) that looks at the night-time economy from a planning perspective. We have our business improvement districts (BIDs), and, last October, the Department for the Economy launched research into the value and potential of the night-time economy. We have Belfast Chamber, with its asks, and the emerging Belfast Agenda. All that points to the need for an integrated and connected plan. It is essential, as I said, to address the challenges but also the opportunities. We need Departments other than Economy and Infrastructure to be involved. The Department for Communities, the Department of Justice and the Executive Office also have to make sure that we drive the vision and change that we want to see. We also need to involve the arm's-length bodies associated with each of those Departments. Belfast City Council can play an important role in locality planning and approach through the LDP. There is also, of course, the private sector. Normally absent from all the conversations on the night-time economy are the inner-city communities that form part of the city centre's rich tapestry. We need to address the democratic deficit of those communities and voices in any conversation on how we develop the city centre and, importantly, the night-time economy. That includes the voices of our culture, arts and leisure sectors. We will have common ground on the challenges and opportunities, but what we really need is a joined-up, coordinated approach. We need the appropriate data to make informed decisions on the way forward so that we can sustain urban planning, ensure safety and well-being, ensure that we have a balanced economy and take workers' rights into account when we look at economic development. We need to bridge the gaps and re-stitch those inner-city communities in order to create the rich physical, social and economic tapestry that has the potential to be developed further in the city. We need to see the cultural and social renaissance of our city, ensuring that we preserve its identity whilst embracing change.

594 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:53 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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