A newly elected councillor has said people living in the Shankill area are wary of how they will be portrayed in the new “Belfast Stories” project, and believe they are a “fishbowl” to tourists.
DUP Councillor Ian McLaughlin, who was elected for the Court district electoral area last month, was reacting to a presentation at City Hall this week about the council’s landmark Belfast Stories development which is due to open at the art deco former Bank of Ireland building on Royal Avenue in 2028.
The council acquired the building along with the surrounding 5,000 sq metres site, and have since carried out a public consultation on what Belfast stories should be included in the project, and also people's thoughts about the city.
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The 77 page consultation report was published this week and was presented by council officers at the council's City Growth and Regeneration Committee on Wednesday. The consultation involved interviews with over 680 people carried out during the Autumn last year.
The report is an initial paper and further public consultation will be carried out by Belfast City Council as the project develops.
While most councillors welcomed the report, and suggested ways to engage with areas of the city that had not yet given responses, Councillor Ian McLaughlin said there would be “a lot of work” to get people from the Shankill behind the project.
He told the committee: “There are large sections of our city that do not feel the benefit currently of tourism, and have not felt the benefit that other parts of the city have felt. With the greatest of respect to everybody in the room, there has been huge investment in a small part of East Belfast, and huge investment across parts of West Belfast.
“But we haven’t had huge investment in tourism in the Greater Shankill area. We haven’t had it in Balmoral and other places. So it comes as no surprise that particular areas within the city don’t feel enthused by this programme, because it is going to be a huge investment in the centre of town, and such programmes up to now have provided no benefit to them.
“I think it absolutely is a fantastic idea, and a fantastic programme, but we need to put more work into it, to ensure that the benefits from it spread to more parts of this city, and more people should be employed in the programme. Relying on volunteers for gathering stories is a very risky strategy I would suggest. If we are serious about this, we need to put real effort into it.”
A council officer said: “As a project we were committed at a very early stage to make sure that while through Belfast stories we want more people to come to the city, to spend more time here, we are committed to make sure that there is a neighbourhood tourism programme.
“We do want to build capacity in neighbourhoods, look at where products can be developed, where there are opportunities for clustering, and where there will be investment in the next few years. So when we open Belfast Stories in 2028/29 we have a much better product across the city, and experiences that can continue beyond the city centre.
“In terms of the jobs and skills opportunities, we have a group already looking at what Belfast Stories can bring, and an inclusive growth group looking at where skills and opportunities across the city will lie.”
Another council officer said: “I absolutely agree it is very challenging in terms of volunteering. Our thinking was that a volunteer collecting three stories each is manageable for the pilot basis, because what the volunteer element allows us to do is ensure diversity.
“One of the elements of feedback was if you have diversity in story gatherers that will result in diversity in the stories that are then shared. That was the programme over the summer, working with eight (volunteers), and there was the training and skills element to that. But obviously there will not be a reliance on volunteers in delivering the much wider story collection programme.”
Councillor McLaughlin replied: “Communities haven’t reaped the benefits from tourism, and I willI make no apologies for mentioning the Greater Shankill, which is currently being used as a fishbowl for tourism. Where people are being driven around in their tour buses, and they drive out again.
“They add little or no value to my community, they don’t remove themselves from their buses, so they don’t spend in our local shops. They don’t add to the economy of Greater Shankill.
“The thing that puts people off from my community, from even taking part in surveys, is that they are subject to stories, told to tourists primarily from taxis and tour buses. Some of the stories that they hear being explained, from people who don’t live in their community, are absolutely ridiculous, and as far removed from the truth as they ever could be.
“That’s why I am personally concerned about a volunteer element to story gathering. Because the stories that are currently volunteered to people within my community are absolutely ridiculous and should not be tolerated.
“So I absolutely would need to see more about this, and find out how you mean to tell the stories. I don’t think anyone should be afraid of a story being told if it is the truth, but I for one don’t wish to hear manufactured stories. There is a lot of work in there before we can ever agree on anything in relation to storytelling - I am sorry to put it like that but it is a fact.”
DUP Councillor for Titanic Sammy Douglas told the chamber: “In a meeting in Templemore Avenue yesterday of the East Belfast Community Development Agency, people were very keen to be involved from a number of areas.”
Newly elected TUV Councillor Ron McDowell, representing Court, said: “I have been really encouraged by what I heard - a real enthusiasm for everyone to be involved.
“One of the things I would press is to engage with the elderly. Obviously the site doesn’t open until 2028, so it is a long way off, but if we don’t get some of those second world war memories, some of those older memories, there will be very few left.”
For more information on Belfast Stories visit here
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