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A £7.5m EU grant has been approved for Newry, Mourne and Down (NMDDC) communities.
The council’s action plan, ‘Thriving Together’ has been awarded the money from the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB) under its PeacePlus programme.
The funding will focus on Theme 1 of the grant 'Building Peaceful and Thriving Communities' and it will support the creation of Co-Designed Local Community Peace Action Plans that will enable and empower local community partnerships to self determine and deliver priority projects on a cross-community basis. This should result in improved, shared and inclusive local services, facilities and spaces.
A letter of offer is expected to be made to the local authority within the next eight weeks, which will be invested in 22 cross community projects.
A council officer presented a report this week in chambers, saying: “The NMDDC action plan, Thriving Together, has been developed by the PeacePlus partnership, utilising a co-design approach involving comprehensive engagement with the local community and other key stakeholders including statutory providers, public bodies, businesses and council DEA (district electoral area) forums.
“Delivered over a three year period (2024-27) the plan will be supported by a budget of approximately €8.6m or £7.5m.
“Across this period, 8,646 participants will be engaged in the delivery of the action plan.
“SEUPB has indicated that it could take up to eight weeks to issue the letter of offer.
“The formal launch of the PeacePlus local action plan will take place in February 2025.
“In the interim we will be undertaking a soft launch to raise awareness of the successful application.”
The Economy, Regeneration and Tourism committee approved accepting the letter of offer without any debate in chambers.
