Initiatives

Current Initiatives the Belfast Area Partnerships are involved in include;

BAPs Development Project
Belfast Employability Initiative
Statement of Need
Arterial Routes
Belfast Visitor Servicing Strategy

BAPs Development Project

During 2002 BAPs made a successful application through the Building Sustainable Prosperity Measure 3.3.

The Development Project aims at coodinating the work of the Belfast Area Partnerships in a more strategic manner in order to develop a long term and forward looking Community Sustainability Strategy for Belfast. It is proposed the project will run until the end of 2005.

The project has six key elements:

1. Employing a coordinator to build contact and carry out functional duties required to develop and sustain a city wide regeneration initiative, offer technical assistance to Partnerships and networks in relation to sustainability and to offer information and advice.

2. To build links with other cities and share information, best practice and advice. Included in this element is the hosting of 2 conferences in Belfast.

3. To organise 5 city wide conferences providing opportunities for communities to engage in the Sustainability Debate, share information and breakdown barriers between the various neighbourhoods

4. To build a city wide network of communities, to engage in a collaborative manner with policy and decision makers

5. To disseminate information via conference reports and meeting notes to the city wide network

6. To conduct a mapping activity, which clearly identifies potential funding and resource providers

Employability Initiative

BAPs is involved in an Employability Initiative dealing with employability, social inclusion and the labour markets. This programme began following a meeting between the Belfast Area Partnerships and the Dublin Area Partnerships.

At this meeting a workshop was held on employability and it emerged that an employability project known as "EQUAL at Work" was operating in Dublin identifying new ways of tackling discrimination and inequality in the labour market. The "EQUAL at Work" project is part funded by European money and is one of twenty one programmes under the EQUAL initiative in Ireland.

Whilst each of the Belfast Area Partnerships was already involved in Employability Initiatives such as Belfast GEMS and the Futures Project, a new Belfast wide group was developed designed to feed into the Dublin EQUAL at Work scheme for the purposes of shared learning. This group still exists on an information sharing basis.

Progression led to the establishment of a further group outside of the relationship with Dublin, the aim being specifically to set up an initiative in Belfast to target marginalised communities and their ability to access and progress within the labour market.

This group is in the early stages of development but has managed to bring on board key players such as NICVA, The Royal Hospitals, Belfast City Hospital and Queens University among others.

It is hoped that through the work being carried out by organisations such as these, new structures and a more strategic approach will be developed to tackling employability issues in Belfast.

Statement of Need

Since the establishment of each of the Partnerships by Making Belfast Work (now known as Belfast Regeneration Office BRO), their relationship with BRO has evolved. More recently this relationship has been formalised through the requirements of the Service Level Agreement (SLA). This has been created as the format for a relationship between BRO and each individual Partnership.

The Service Level Agreement outlines how the work of each of the Partnerships will progress an Urban Regeneration Strategy for each of the Partnership areas. The mechanism for this is a requirement by the SLA for each Partnership to identify levels of need at a local level. By doing so each Partnership will be able to offer an informed input into the BRO Strategy at local level and enable the targeting of resources in the most effective way.

Through each of the Statements of Need it is hoped that common themes across the areas may be identified. It is hoped that such common themes will be dealt with by the BAPs forum.

Once all the Statements of Need are complete you will be able to access them via this site.

Arterial Routes Programme

The Belfast Area Partnerships are jointly involved in an initiative concerning Arterial Routes. The initiative is facilitated by Belfast City Council and other partners participating include, Belfast Regeneration Office and Northern Ireland Housing Executive.

The aim of this initiative is to address the upgrading of the arterial routes across Belfast through initiatives addressing economic, environmental and physical improvements. These are the key routes radiating out of from the City Centre and are vital to the social and economic progression of Belfast.

The main arterial routes identified within the programme are: Newtownards Road, Albertbridge Road, Woodstock Road, Ormeau Road, Malone Road, Lisburn Road, Donegall Road, Falls Road, Springfield/Grosvenor Road, Shankill Road, Crumlin Road, Antrim Road and Shore Road.

It was recognised that the Arterial Routes Programme would be a long term development programme. It was agreed that priority nodes would be identified for different stages of development. An initial assessment was carried out by the Partnerships in each of their areas using criteria such as conditions of buildings and space, strategic location of the site and complimentarity with other initiatives, among other criteria. The information was then fed to the Council where it was mapped onto a Geographical Information System and specific area data was added.

A key route for priority intervention has been identified in each area, and these are;

In the East, the Newtownards Road from where Bryson Street intersects with the Newtownards Road to Hunt Street.

In the South, mid Donegall Road from the Broadway roundabout to where Daphne Street Intersects with the Donegall Road.

In the North, lower Antrim Road and lower Shore Road, a stretch of road from where Whitley Street intersects with lower York Street to where Fife Street intersects with York Road.

In the West, lower Falls Road from Divis Street to the intersection of Cavendish Street with the Falls Road.

In the Shankill area, a stretch of road from Townsend Street to Tennent Street.

Initial work has now commenced on developing plans for these areas, with the help of DTZ Pieda consultants. Each Partnership is now involved in bringing together a local Steering Group and further updating this information for each of their respective areas.

Belfast Visitor Servicing Strategy

This strategy is in the latter stages of development and involves key partners such as Belfast City Council, Northern Ireland Tourist Board and the Belfast Visitor and Convention Bureau alongside the Belfast Area Partnerships.

The development of the strategy has been split into two key areas - the development of Product and the development of Visitor Servicing. This has led to two separate bids for funding being be made.

Belfast City Council is managing the application for funding for the development of the product. This is in its final stages and its is hoped that if it is successful, funding will become available for allocation over the three year period of the project.

A further, smaller bid is being made by the Belfast Visitor and Convention Bureau for the development of Visitor Servicing. Again if successful, it is hoped that funding will be provided for the development of Visitor Servicing across Belfast.

The Belfast Area Partnerships are involved in the implementation of this project and the participation of the BAPs has provided a well established channel through which to make the strategy Belfast wide.