Eye of storm deny they where the money went

Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council said: “The Executive Office determined the constitution and appointment of the steering group.

“The council was not party to the set-up and processes of the Social Investment Fund”.

Former Lord Mayor of Belfast Brian Kingston said that he had declared his role as a board member of Argyle Business Centre to the Belfast West SIF steering group.

“I didn’t have any particular role in their application,” said Mr Kingston, who is a director of the centre.

“It was put together by the chief executive and manager from the centre, and all applications were scored against criteria.

“The scoring process for the Argyle Business Centre was done independently.

“Members of the steering groups were largely just overseeing the project, but we weren’t going through the detail of them.”

Mr Kingston said he had “no role” in the steering group’s decision to award funding to Argyle Business Centre.

Drennan McBride, executive chairman of Argyle Business Centre, said that the organisation hadn’t yet received the SIF funding.

He added that he didn’t think it was an unfair advantage to have a director on the steering group.

He added that Argyle Business Centre had “probably lost out” as Mr Kingston had asked the group to “cut” the size of the project.

Mr McConville, director of Falls Community Council, said that he had registered a conflict of interest with the Belfast West SIF steering group “as soon as it came up”.

He added that he was “not involved in any discussions regarding the award of the funding”.

He said that Belfast City Council was the lead partner.

“No money has come in near Falls Community Council at all,” he said.

Mr Stoker said that he “did not have any influence” over the shortlisting of the South City Resource and Development Centre project by the Belfast South SIF steering group.

According to the Executive Office website, he was replaced on the steering group by UUP councillor Jeffrey Dudgeon in spring 2016.

But Mr Stoker told this newspaper he was replaced in October 2015.

“I was not a member of the Belfast South steering group when applications were first lodged in early 2012,” he said.

“I was a member from late 2012, early 2013 and during the intervening period up to October 2015 when I was replaced by the UUP.

“I did not have any influence in the decision making process in regard to the South City project being forwarded on to the shortlist for capital projects.”

No responses were received from Robin Newton or the DUP.

Mr Newton served as a director of Landmark East from November 22, 2006 until November 30, 2016 and sat on the Belfast East SIF steering group.

Last week he told this newspaper that he didn’t remember whether he had been a member of the steering group at the time when it was involved in selecting Landmark East’s Bryson Street doctor’s surgery project.

“If I was, I didn’t see it as a conflict of interest at that time,” he said then.

Maurice Kinkead, the chief executive of Eastside Partnership and Landmark East, said that he “honestly didn’t think” that having Mr Newton on the steering group which awarded funding gave the two projects an unfair advantage, and added that they “had zero contact with him around that”.

The Belfast Telegraph attempted to contact Laganview Enterprise Agency and South City Resource and Development Agency.