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Despite calls over 12 months ago from Newry City Councillor Gavin Malone, for the Council to consider applying for funding to build the Albert Basin park from the British Government's Levelling Up Fund, it has emerged that Newry, Mourne and Down District Council will not be including the park in any application to the latest phase of the Fund!
A 15 acre park at the Albert Basin site in Newry was agreed by Council in November 2017 but progress has been slow or non existant since then.
Council agreed in May 2021 not to submit any applications for the June 2021 deadline for round one of the fund and at the time ERT Director, Conor Mallon explained that they would continue with work to prepare robust applications bids for future rounds of funding from the Levelling Up Fund.
In the year Council didn't apply the Levelling Up Fund provided millions of pounds of funding for parks, canal restoration projects, waterfront regeneration and much more for many Council's throughout the UK.
Round two of the Levelling Up Fund is currently open, with the deadline for applications set for next week, 6 July and it seems Newry, Mourne and Down District Council are making applications, just none for the park!
In a query to the Council Newry.ie asked if Council have made or were planning to make an application for funding for the Park at the Albert Basin from tranche two of the Levelling Up Fund?
In their answer they said "Given the fund criteria around scale, complementarity, alignment to local and regional strategies, the need to have match funds in place and the requirement to commence implementation immediately, existing Council capital projects will be developed for submission of applications to the Levelling Up Fund." Finding the answer unclear we asked them if that meant yes or no and in reply they stated "Newry, Mourne and Down District Council has no further comment at this stage."
Separately we have discovered that the answer could just have been a simple "no" and Council are not applying for park funding from round two of Levelling Up fund!
The snail like progress of the Albert Basin park project has seen the allocation of £16m from the Department of Finance in December 2021. Council claim the project will cost over £30m but apart from £170,000 Council money no other funding has been applied for to progress the project. It has also emerged that Newry, Mourne and Down District Council along with another Council did not submit their application to the DoF until 7 days after the original deadline for applications. DoF originally had a deadline of 1 September 2021 but then extended it to 22 September to enable them to consider cross-Deal bids from the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives NI at a meeting taking place after the original closing date! The Council park bid was made 8 September.
£16m Funding Not at Risk if other NCCR projects fail!
In a bid to confirm that the current £16m funding awarded from the Complementary Fund wouldn't be at risk from failure to proceed with any other elements of the Newry City Centre Regeneration programme such as the Theatre/ Conference Centre or Public Realm work, Newry.ie asked Department of Finance for "clarification on whether the failure to deliver any element of the Newry City Centre Regeneration programme would place the Albert Basin Park funding at risk according to the terms of the Complementary Fund Grant."
In their reply they stated that the funding would NOT be at risk regardless. A Spokesperson stated "Complementary Fund bids were to be complementary to the relevant City/ Growth Deals, however, projects were not assessed on dependency or otherwise on other projects. Funding, therefore, for the Albert Basin Park would not be at risk should there be a failure of any element of Newry City Centre Regeneration project, or any other project."
