Lisburn Council aims to spend near £1m on village regeneration scheme across district

Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council could potentially spend close to £1million on regenerating villages across the district.
Lisburn city centre. Pic by John KellyLisburn city centre. Pic by John Kelly
Lisburn city centre. Pic by John Kelly

Council officers employed by the local authority have applied for £819,000 from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA).

If successful, the monies will come through a pilot Village Regeneration Scheme providing 90% with the council contributing 10% of the total funding (£91,000).

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It’s understood that DEARA approached all eleven councils to request officers carry out a review of the Village Renewal Plans to pull together a list of ‘shovel ready’ projects with their estimated costs to be considered.

The local authority’s Corporate Management Team identified five key projects in July for DAERA to consider, including Aghalee Village Hall and car park, Moira Village parklet, Magheraconluce parklet, Drumbo Playing Fields and Ballinderry War Memorial.

It’s expected that the majority of the funding will be spent on repairs to the Ballinderry War Memorial, with at least £750,000 being earmarked for the project.

Council officers are expected to learn in the coming weeks whether the Department’s pilot will move forward and if their bids have been successful.

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However, one council director slammed Stormont for giving the council “extremely short notice” for the application.

Director of Service Transformation, Donal Rogan said the lack of notice from regional government wasn’t enabling council officers to be strategic with their applications.

He added: “Over the summer months we have seven applications for grant funding and they are coming in at really short notice from regional government.

“We are being funding-led instead of being funding-fed in many of these instances. I am not saying that we should turn any of this money down because there will be letters of offer that come through on this and some suits are on agenda but they are not allowing us to be strategic collectively.

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“We are coming out of [this application] trying to get rid of money and you can see what is happening coming out of regional government. I am not saying not to take advantage of it, I am just making the point.

“Right now we are running after funding and I know one officer spent one weekend writing these applications so I need to commend them for that.”