Assembly Speech January 2008
I would like to pay tribute to Mrs Iris Robinson MP MLA for raising this issue within this adjournment debate.
The importance of this project to the area cannot be overestimated.
The deprivation need in the area has been acknowledged and the area has been designated as an area of need.
I want to declare an interest in the matter as I am a director of Landmark East, a charity organisation and an arms length company of the East Belfast Partnership.
Points
1. Landmark East was asked by the various agencies to help out by delivering this project. As such the Directors took a very positive, very responsible and a very professional approach to the delivery of this project.
The Directors are now left with incurred debts of £400,000 with the various agencies now appearing to walk away from the project.
Regardless of the legal implications one would hope that our government bodies operate under a moral or ethical code which would see this as an unacceptable situation that needs to be rectified.
To settle the debts of Landmark East the Directors may be called upon to sell the site to recoup the £400,000.
Can anyone really believe this is in the best interests of the Ballybeen community? Expectations that have been raised will be dashed and the enthusiasm of all those who have given their time in the development of the project will be exhausted.
Perhaps worst of all £400,000 will literally have been wasted in times of the need for financial prudence and accountability. Many will view this as departmental incompetence and mismanagement.
2. There are many questions that need to be asked:
Why at this late stage is health funding not available putting the whole project at risk?
Why if DHSSPS funding is not available, is DSD also withdrawing funds already allocated, especially as the project is viable and meets that needs of the community even without the health element?
Landmark East has paid out professional design fees of £112,633 and on 31 November 2007 asked for reimbursement without a satisfactory response.
Ballybeen has been designated by DSD as an area of risk, yet immediately following the announce of this status the DSD are preparing to pull the plug on £1.5 million of already allocated funding.
The Enler development is critical to the entire future of the Ballybeen estate, allowing the Ballybeen Square to be redeveloped and putting the very heart back into this community that has suffered so much over past years.
This project has been 10 years in the talking and in the making. A huge amount of time, public and voluntary resources have been devoted to the project only to see it potentially collapse. The project was agreed 5 years ago and since then delay has been caused by all the various statutory bodies dragging their feet and an appraisal process spread over years.
If the project does not precede all this time will have been wasted.
Summary
After many years of working with the statutory agencies confidence was being built within the Ballybeen community that something positive was now being done. The collapse of this project will destroy that confidence and give credence to those who have taken a negative approach.
Having Health funding withdrawn was bad enough but now made worse by the DSD also withdrawing funds.
Landmark East, a charity, agreed to help deliver this project, and did so in good faith, but now has been left with nothing but a large debt while government departments walk away.
