The DUP Group on Causeway Coast & Glens Council are seeking an urgent council meeting to discuss the implications of the Labour Government pausing Northern Ireland’s City Deals.
Cllr Mark Fielding said:
“More than £36m has disappeared from our plans overnight. This is a shameful decision and has rocked our development plans for the Council area. City Deals were a key component of the DUP’s Confidence and Supply arrangement in 2017.
“In July this year, the new Secretary of State Hilary Benn explicitly indicated that Labour would honour the City Deal agreements reached with the previous Government. Why has this position changed?
“We are seeking an urgent meeting of the full Council to discuss the immediate implications and we will be requesting that the Secretary of State comes to a Council meeting to explain to the people why the Labour Government has decimated our development plans.”
Projects that could be affected in Causeway Coast and Glens Council are:
1. Centre for food and drug discovery at Ulster University Coleraine
2. Business innovation and incubation hub at Atlantic Link Coleraine
3. Innovation hub at North West Regional College, Limavady
4. Bushmills connected: regeneration project
5. Dungiven regeneration project
6. Cushendall innovation centre
7. Coleraine leisure and wellbeing centre
8. Connected Causeway traffic and parking
9. Portrush to Bushmills greenway
The immediate challenges are the:
- £20m agreed to fund the Centre for Food and drug discovery at the Ulster University in Coleraine,
- £14.9m had been allocated to the business innovation and incubation hub in Coleraine and
- £1.2m for the food innovation hub at the North West Regional College in Limavady.