Social Development Minister Alex Attwood announced today that he has signed off a major programme of capital spending for urban regeneration worth some £137million over the next 4 years.

As well as a £10 million contribution to the Derry/Londonderry City of Culture efforts, the Minister has decided to allocate £32million for community-based capital projects and £95 million for further projects that will help transform our cities and towns.

Highlighting some of the environmental improvement schemes that would benefit from his decisions, the Minister said: “I fought hard during the Budget negotiations to make the case for Neighbourhood Renewal and other targeted urban regeneration measures as among the key ways to support the most vulnerable in our society. Projects such as the rejuvenation of Woodvale and Dunville Parks in Belfast, and a programme of public realm work across the country will dramatically improve the environment in which people live and work.

-- Advertisement --

“In places as diverse as Derry and Dungannon, Newry and Enniskillen, Carrickfergus and Portrush, our work will reinvent streetscape and help to attract investment and jobs. In Belfast, I will fund a programme of public realm improvement that, for the first time, recognises the distinctive asset that is the Gaeltacht Quarter.

“I intend to build on the public realm work completed in Derry city centre in 2010 and further enhance the urban environment in keeping with the city’s designation as City of Culture 2013”

Alex Attwood’s programme of Urban Development Grants in disadvantaged areas will help to create and sustain employment as well as helping to remove dereliction. The Minister said “We know how hard it is, in the current recession, for businesses to invest and trade in any area. My Department’s Urban Development Grant will help to get some much-needed projects over the line, and my Department will be making a number of funding offers in the near future.”

Speaking about the broad range of community–based projects that would be offered funding, the Minister said: “Since becoming Minister, my emphasis has been on delivering services to the people who most need them. While I would have liked a much larger capital budget, I’m pleased that projects such as the Templemore Avenue Community Hub in East Belfast and a Multi Usage Games Area in the Fountain in Derry can now get under way. I also want to make capital funding available to a number of other Neighbourhood Renewal projects as part of a funding cocktail such as St Malachy’s Youth Centre in the Markets area of Belfast."

(GK/KMcA)