A Laganside-style development corporation needs to be created to help resuscitate the derelict site in Belfast known as Tribeca and recoup tens of millions of pounds in lost revenue from unpaid rates on vacant properties.
The SDLP is putting down a motion on the Tribeca Belfast urban regeneration scheme in the Assembly for the first time, with a specific ask for Finance Minister Caoimhe Archibald to step in.
The Opposition wants the minister to either force the site’s owners Castlebrooke Investments to move immediately on rejuvenating the 12-acre scheme, or for all or part of the site to be taken back into community use and unspent Stormont lending (known as Financial Transactions Capital) utilised to bring that part of the city back to life.
It follows a revelation in the Irish News in October that no rates are being paid on 20 assets within the Tribeca scheme, eight years after Castlebrooke initially acquired a raft of buildings on the city centre, which extends from the edges of Royal Avenue to St Anne’s Cathedral, with the promise to spend £500 million.
Opposition leader Matthew O’Toole said: “We are open minded on how Tribeca is dealt with, but the current situation is untenable and unacceptable.
“One of the most vital sites in the city has been abandoned to dereliction and no one seems to have a plan for dealing with it.
“The developers are either unable or unwilling to progress it, and meanwhile one of the most historic parts of the city, which includes the fabled Assembly Rooms, so significant in the history of enlightenment Belfast, is being allowed to fall into rack and ruin.
“Alongside it, our hospitality and cultural highlights in the rest of the Cathedral Quarter are being let down by this appalling dereliction and we are losing millions in rates revenue.”
Mr O’Toole says he wants the Executive to work with Belfast City Council to take a grasp of the issue and allow the city to benefit from the huge opportunities of a revitalised enlightenment district.
He added: “If the site is vested, we could deploy unspent Financial Transactions Capital (FTC) to deliver a new future for the site, with a Laganside Corporation-style body offering some kind of precedent for how the structure might work.
“There are limitless economic, cultural and social benefits for the city to realise, because the status quo isn’t defensible any longer.”
The Laganside Corporation operated from 1989 to 2007 as a non-departmental public body with the goal of regenerating large sections of land in Belfast adjacent to the River Lagan and later in areas closer to the city centre, including the Ormeau Gasworks and the Cathedral Quarter.
It was wound up in March 2007 and its responsibilities transferred to the then Department for Social Development, which was replaced in 2016 by the Department for the Communities.
