Flashpoint residents split over retaining peace walls
Survey highlights continuing split on barriers
COMMUNITIES l iving near peace walls remain divided over whether or not they should be removed, according to a new survey.
Around 40% feel optimistic that the walls will come tumbling down in time, but the same number are convinced it will never happen.
The poll of interface area residents also found half wanted their nearest peaceline to come down.
But more than 20 years after the Good Friday Agreement, 42% still preferred them to remain — with concern over safety and effective community policing being factors in the response.
A NEW survey commissioned by the Department of Justice has found that communities living near peace walls continue to be split on whether or not they should be removed.
The survey also showed a divide (40% each) between those who feel optimistic that there will come a time of no peace walls in their area, as opposed to those who are convinced that will never happen.
The findings of the Ipsos MORI poll conducted across interface areas show that while 49% of residents wanted their nearest peaceli ne to come down, more than 20 years after the Good Friday Agreement 42% still preferred them to remain — with concern over safety and effective community policing being factors in the response.
Additionally, while the majority of residents interact with the community on the other side of their nearest peace wall (57%), over a third of participants reported never having had any interaction with the community on the other side.
And despite some walls being popular tourist attractions, the survey found that the majority of residents (59%) thought they portrayed a bad image to people abroad. And 41% agreed that they reduced investment in their area.
This latest survey follows on from similar studies in 2012 and 2015 and is part of the Executive’s strategy for removing all peace walls by 2023.
That is a target the majority of those surveyed (54%) did not feel was realistic.
Reacting to the report Joe O’donnell, strategic director of the Belfast Interface Project, stressed that the question had to be much broader than simply whether the walls stayed up or were razed.
“Too often we offer residents a binary choice in these surveys,” he argued.
“We don’t have a plan or solution for what we are going to do when the walls go down.
“Therefore, if you go to any interface community and they don’t know what the plan is once the wall comes down and what the area will look like in 10 years’ time, the answer would likely be no.
“The date set out in the Programme for Government was 2023, and in the view of our organisation that indicative date was a bit optimistic.
“We are talking about a century of segregation if this is to continue.
“In the modern, first-world society we are supposed to be, do we want to live in a city that is segregated with over a hundred walls?
“To change interfaces and to change people’s mindsets, we need to change the social conditions.
“Communities and residents need to see the plan. We need a proper economically costed plan to create change.
“How that happens is key to whether or not the people there will support the removal of walls.”
Rab Mccallum of the North Belfast Interface Network charity works on the ground in communities with peacelines.
He questioned the depth of the survey by the Department of Justice, and instead was optimistic about the change that was taking place within and among interface communities.
“We have felt on the ground that things have been improving for quite a while now,” he said.
“If you just ask people whether they would like the wall removed without dealing with the complexities, then they are more likely to say no.
“If you say that you want the wall down, people automatically imagine nothing has been done after.
“A simple survey was put through someone’s door and people interpret the questions themselves. I don’t think it necessarily reflects fully what is going on in communities right now.
“We took a wall down on the Crumlin Road.
“People knew t here were structures in place and ways and means of dealing with the difficulties that would arise.”
Mr Mccallum was also optimistic about the improvement in interface communities interacting with one another as a result of initiatives groups like his put in place.
“We provide Christmas events, for example, in both communities, putting on a craft class and then getting into a discussion.
“This is an incremental process that creates opportunity for people to meet with each other and then to develop and sustain those relationships.
“We have been doing that for a while and are seeing results.”
The Department of Justice was contacted but was unable to provide a response at the time of going to press.