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Belfast Live
Belfast Live
National
Brendan Hughes

Belfast interface bonfire site to make way for new housing under consultation proposals

A contentious bonfire site at a North Belfast interface is to become a housing and retail development under new proposals.

The Eleventh Night bonfire at Adam Street in the loyalist Tigers Bay area has been the focus of political and community tensions in recent years.

Stormont's Department for Communities has launched a six-week public consultation on the way forward for the disused site.

Read more: MLA says Stormont ministers 'squandered' public money on court dispute over Belfast bonfire

Two options have been proposed which involve building up to 14 new homes on Adam Street and a ground-floor retail unit looking onto Duncairn Gardens.

The designs appear to reopen Adam Street to vehicle access for residents by removing the interface gates at its junctions with Duncairn Gardens and Upper Canning Street.

The proposals, which are subject to ongoing engagement with the Housing Executive and economic development agency Invest NI, are part of a wider consultation aimed at improving the Duncairn Gardens area.

Consultants from Carlin Planning Limited were commissioned to produce the development study, which is expected to cost around £33,000.

The Department for Communities said the Duncairn Gardens area has faced "physical decline" in recent years following issues around vacant land and the closure of a large building owned by Invest NI.

Announcing the consultation, it said: "This work not only seeks to improve the physical environment but provides communities with the opportunity to have their say on local provisions.

"Initial comprehensive work has now been completed and, over the next six weeks, people from the local communities, businesses, and the wider public can influence the future of their area."

DUP councillor Dean McCullough said the regeneration of Adam Street is "long overdue" and people in Tigers Bay "overwhelmingly support social housing being built".

He added: "The consent of the good people of Tigers Bay to any proposals remains our priority."

Belfast Live revealed in June that the department planned to launch a consultation on the future of the Adam Street site.

It followed the Department for Infrastructure securing an "abandonment order" for the disused street.

According to legal papers, the Department for Communities and Invest NI own parts of the area being abandoned and the road would revert back to their ownership.

Last year nationalist politicians had called for the Adam Street bonfire to be removed, saying that homes in the neighbouring New Lodge area had come under attack.

But unionist politicians rejected this, insisting the pyre was an expression of culture and accusing nationalist leaders of raising tensions.

A High Court bid by two Stormont ministers to compel police to help remove the bonfire failed after officers warned it would create a "risk to life".

The legal action by then Sinn Féin Communities Minister Deirdre Hargey and SDLP Infrastructure Minister Nichola Mallon cost their departments more than £22,500.

A judge later ruled the pyre had been used by some loyalists to "intimidate and terrorise" New Lodge residents by hitting golf balls, throwing bricks and singing sectarian songs.

In January, loyalist activist Jamie Bryson pursued judicial review proceedings against the ministers, contending that they should have secured the approval of the wider Stormont Executive before taking court action.

A judge dismissed his challenge on the basis that the issue was now academic.

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