Once in a lifetime opportunity to tackle legacy of deprivation

By North Belfast Sinn Féin MLA Carál Ní Chuilín
This week a Sinn Féin delegation from North Belfast met with the inister for social development Margaret Ritchie and her officials to raise our concerns about the development of the Girdwood site.
Junior Minister in the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister, Gerry Kelly MLA, North Belfast constituency manager Shauneen Baker and myself had asked for the meeting to discuss the huge potential of the 20-acre former British Army barracks for the people of North Belfast.
Sitting just one mile from Belfast city centre, bordered by the Crumlin Road Gaol and Belfast Courthouse sites, and the Mater Hospital, Girdwood offers the people of North Belfast a once in a lifetime opportunity to help tackle decades of social and economic deprivation, underinvestment and discrimination.
In my view it is imperative that any plan for the site tackles objective need in the community.
It must also take into account the wishes of local people as expressed time and time again during the consultations which shaped the draft masterplan and during the Equality Impact Assessment currently being carried out.
Sinn Féin believes that any development at Girdwood must begin to tackle the problems of chronic housing shortage and leisure provision in the north of the city.
However, the site can also play a key role in health and education provision while providing employment, apprenticeships and training for local people.
The development of the Girdwood/Crumlin Road Gaol site also opens up new possibilities for North Belfast in the area of tourism.
It is our opinion that the development of the site must be underpinned by equality, addressing the varied and different needs of the communities who live in the surrounding area.
On that basis the development of the site should be a win-win for all the people of North Belfast.
Girdwood offers a unique opportunity to the minister to tackle inequalities while creating a flagship development which delivers the services required by the people of North Belfast.
This can be a shining example to the rest of the people of this city of just how much can be achieved if the political will is there to do it.
While work on the site may take several years to complete when the development gets the green light it is vital that the minister makes the right decisions now.
We believe that this week’s meeting was a positive step forward towards achieving a first class multi-use development at a place which was only associated with the torture of Republican detainees from the early ‘70s onwards.
I particularly welcome the minister’s assertion that at the core of any future development of Girdwood is the delivery of housing and services based on objective need.
We look forward on that basis to future engagements with the minister and her department to ensure that Girdwood does indeed deliver on its real potential for all of us who live here.