Sinn Féin have criticised a £40,000 Belfast Council budget for a pumpkin garden in the front of City Hall for Halloween.
At the October monthly meeting of the full Belfast City Council, Sinn Féin tried and failed to block a one-off payment by the council for Halloween “animation” and criticised the payment for not going out to open bidding for groups across the city.
At a committee meeting last month, councillors agreed “direct awards” of £40,000 for Halloween activity and £20,000 for busking activity. It will be the first Halloween events held on the lawn at Belfast City Hall.
The Belfast One Business Improvement District will create five monsters in buildings across the city for Halloween, and the council has committed to creating two more and a monster trail with the money, as well as monster eyes in trees on Donegall Place.
The remaining money from the 40K funding for Halloween will go to a pumpkin patch in the grounds of City Hall over two to three days. 20K will also go to Belfast One to run a busking competition across the city over four weekends between October and November.
At the meeting on Tuesday night, Sinn Féin Councillor Ronan McLaughlin said:
“We like to talk about carve-ups in this organisation, this is for a pumpkin carve-up out the front of the City Hall.”
He added: “The problem for this is that it didn’t go through any sort of process, it wasn’t evaluated, or scored. Basically this organisation came to us, we said that sounds like a good idea, here is potentially £60,000.
“I don’t think that is a good way of doing business, and I don’t think it is fair on any other organisations within this city that have events across the city.”
He proposed that the £60,000 meant for the Belfast One Halloween and busking events instead be put into a fund across the city, from which any organisation could apply for animation in the City Centre “or in any other community.” He proposed that the application process would be scored and evaluated.
On a vote the proposal fell, with 22 votes in support from Sinn Féin and People Before Profit, and 33 votes against the proposal from the DUP, Alliance, the SDLP, the Greens, and the UUP.
SDLP Councillor Séamas de Faoite said:
“We have all expressed concerns in the past where funds have been brought forward, and there hasn’t been entirely open processes. What I would say is that this project is probably at a slightly more advanced stage, it is not just what is planned in front of the City Hall, which I believe is a pumpkin patch, but there are other forms of animation planned.
“There is additional money coming through from Levelling Up, which was outlined at the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee, where there would be some additional funds there. So rather than cancelling what has been planned in terms of the work with the Business Improvement District, we could actually use the additional money coming forward to create the type of pot that Councillor McLaughlin is talking about.”
Councillor De Faoite offered his proposal as a “friendly amendment” to Councillor Ronan McLaughlin’s proposal, but this was not accepted by the Sinn Féin elected representative.
The Deputy Lord Mayor, DUP Councillor Andrew McCormick, said the council should support the original plan for the £40,000 Halloween spend. He said:
“I think we should be supporting it, to bring more people and more tourism into this city, and putting the capital city of Northern Ireland on the market, showing that it can host big events and bring people in. Four weeks is a very short turnaround time, and Halloween is not very far away.”
Sinn Féin Councillor Ciaran Beattie said:
“We do support events in the city, particularly those that animate the city and bring visitors to the city. But this one, you have to remember, was an ad hoc request, it came in at the last minute.
“Continuously we see other parts resisting that, because there wasn’t due process followed. There wasn’t due process followed on this.
“There are multiple groups across the city, particularly around Halloween, in the north, east, south and west of the city, who have very successful events, where thousands attend. And none of those groups were invited to apply for any funding out of this particular pot.
“This was basically a cheque written for this organisation to go and buy £40,000 worth of pumpkins.” He said: “We have to remember, this is public money we are talking about here, and effectively what we are doing with public money now is blowing it on pumpkins.”
Alliance Councillor Sam Nelson said:
“I have a lot of sympathy with the points raised. My understanding is that we are looking at a particular issue around the City Centre, in terms of how we want to change the narrative, and bring more people into the City Centre, and provide something quickly that will do that over Halloween. There is a real time pressure on this.
“We are in favour of looking at how this can be seen as a pilot scheme, and to look at how we can develop a process in future years.”
The council committee minutes states:
“Belfast One has already committed to hosting five monsters in buildings across the city. BCC are seeking to provide increased funding to enhance this to seven, creating a monster trail and placing monster eyes in trees on Donegall Place.
“These are attractive and award-winning outdoor attractions which have been on display in other cities including Manchester, London, Glasgow and Dublin with great success. Through an exciting primary-school competition to name each of the monsters, we can drive footfall from children and their families into the City Centre to visit the monsters to enter the ‘Name the Monster’ competition.
“The remaining funding would deliver in partnership with Belfast One a pumpkin patch in the grounds of City Hall over two to three days replicating the popular event to draw families and Halloween enthusiasts into the city. The event would be a free ticketed event and would encourage participants to take their pumpkins to designated design stations across the city to dress their pumpkins.
“This event creates stunning visual images in front of the city’s main municipal building and demonstrates visually that the city is open for families and children.”