Sinn Féin Minister gets first hand look at local issues

Sinn Féin MLA and Northern Department of Regional Development minister Conor Murphy was taken around North Belfast by local Sinn Féin assembly members Carál Ní Chuilín and Gerry Kelly this week.
The purpose of the visit was to give the minister a better understanding of the traffic, transport and flooding issues affecting residents from the New Lodge, Antrim Road to Ardoyne.

Ardoyne/Antrim Road
The Sinn Féin minister was taken to Flax and Herbert Streets to discuss traffic calming measures with school officials and community workers and also to the Cavehill Antrim Road Regeneration (CARR) group to meet housing campaigners and human rights activists over the need to release car parking sites for new homes.

New Lodge
Conor Murphy and officials from NI Water were also taken to Carlisle Walk in the New Lodge to hear at firsthand from residents their battle against the weather, flooding and raw sewerage.
"He met with residents who have been plagued with raw sewage and constant flooding due to burst waterpipes," said Carál.
"The state of the street is horrendous and the minister was there to talk to his officials and task different representatives to get this remedied."

Rapid Transport
Republican activist Carál Ní Chuilín also said her party stressed the importance of including North Belfast in DRD's plans to bring a rapid transport system to the city.
"We are pushing for DSD to include North Belfast in that pilot and we have another meeting with officials scheduled shortly to discuss this in more detail.
"I think Conor's visit this week was positive. I'm confident that some of the issues will be addressed, albeit in the long term but I hope it was very empowering for residents
"For long enough, officialdom has kept people at arms length and this is slowly turning around.

Girdwood
"We also went to Girdwood and talked about opening up the roads around there. We talked about the importance of linking North Belfast into the city and how crucial it is that any plans need to be joined up.
"A lot of ideas and plans are on paper, seeing them at first hand makes it a lot clearer.
"The Department of Social Development has five masterplans for North Belfast, we're worried that equality is going to fall between the stools because there are so many. There should be one big masterplan," she added.