Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Light at end of the tunnels?
€2.6m bid to revamp Market area
THE £2.6million redevelopment of the Market area would transform the community and wider Belfast, a community worker has said.
Funding has already been secured for the project which could see unique developments at the disused and historical Lanyon Tunnels.
Business cases are being prepared behind the scenes and plans are in place for the tunnels and archways to be transformed into:
A passageway to reconnect the community with the city centre A creche
A gym, and
A restaurant/social space.
Fionntan Hargey, from the Market Development
Association, told the Mirror the project was about reconnecting the area with the city centre, as well as providing as many as 60 new jobs.
She said: “When the Market area was redeveloped in 1970 it suffered from the same types of bad planning practices a lot of working-class communities did.
“So it was actively sealed off from the city centre and it was actively de-industrialised. And we’re still dealing with the effects of that bad planning.
“The tunnels came on the back of the 2009 Market Regeneration Plan and the idea was to reconnect the community physically but also culturally and economically back into the city.
“So within those tunnels there was a number of uses identified – including social issues like health, employment and education. And the tunnels present a way that not only reconnects with the city but also addresses issues around bad health and employment.
“The teams are ready to go but there are issues there around access to the site and that’s preventing them from getting off the ground.”