A council has made an appeal to Stormont to devolve regeneration powers for towns and villages to local authorities.
Elected representatives at Ards and North Down Council all backed an Alliance Party motion calling for a transformation in the ability of local authorities to restore run down town centres and ailing businesses.
During the recent Regeneration and Development Committee meeting, councillors called upon the other 10 councils in Northern Ireland to join Ards and North Down in challenging Stormont to give power to those authorities that have greatest knowledge of local problems.
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The motion states the council recognises “the potential difference we could make to the lives of residents and businesses throughout our borough if we were to have full responsibility for a regeneration budget as envisaged in the Review of Public Administration".
Elected members agreed to write to Deidre Hargey, the Minister for Communities requesting her to devolve powers to local councils in the next assembly mandate. Councillors also commissioned officers to write a paper outlining a programme of engagement with other councils, as well as local authority organisations such as SOLACE and NILGA “to present a united campaign to secure the minister’s support”.
Alliance Councillor Gavin Walker, who tabled the motion, said: “The powers of regeneration which were suggested to be handed down to us in the Review of Public Administration never came. The reasons for this aren't even important any more, we are so far away from the decision. We are where we are, and we need to find a way forward.
“We know what we want to do as a council, and we know what we can achieve, if we are given the opportunity and the funding to do so. There are lots of programmes we would like to put into place, but we are totally frustrated by the Stormont departments not being able to work together. Sometimes if we are lucky, we can meet the timeline and the criteria set down by Stormont, but unfortunately, for whatever reason, we miss out on opportunities because of the criteria behind the funding.”
He added: “The idea behind this motion is to go back to what was originally suggested - that each council would be given a certain amount of money and powers for regeneration in their borough. That allows councils to make the decisions themselves as to how to spend that money, not in a matter of months, but over a period of ten years.
“If we can sit down with council officers and residents and ask ourselves, how do we really want to regenerate our towns and villages, what are the priorities? We have the master plans in place, we can easily identify what we want to do, if we had the money for ten years, we can take a strategic approach. It’s not difficult, it's not rocket science, and we have proven we can do it. This is something that should be coming back to councils.”
UUP Councillor Carl McClean said: “It comes down to a question of accountability. We keep complaining about the Department for Infrastructure, or specifically DFI Roads, but it's something we could extrapolate to any bureaucracy in the world. It's not really their job - they don’t lose sleep or promotion if things aren’t tied together in our towns and villages in the way they should be. No one really minds, they will still be able to get a pension and do their day to day job - it simply isn’t a priority for them.
“Bringing these powers to a lower level, where we are on the ground, actually means there is a degree of accountability. So if we are not doing our job collectively, or officers aren’t doing their job collectively, there is a process by which we and the electorate can ultimately sort that out.”
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