Connswater Community Greenway a winner

Social Development Minister, Margaret Ritchie MLA has congratulated Connswater Community Greenway (CCG) on receiving a prestigious Waterways Renaissance Award.

Margaret Ritchie said: “I offer warm congratulations to the Connswater Community Greenway project team and the East Belfast Partnership on winning the ‘Partnership’ category and coming runner up in the ‘Strategy and Master planning’ category in these prestigious awards.

“The Connswater Community Greenway is a brilliant example of partnership working in its truest sense – community, central government, local government and the private sector. Over £3million from the Neighbourhood Renewal Investment Fund will help deliver this project. I am delighted that the hard work of the Project Team and East Belfast Partnership has been rewarded.”

Notes to Editors:

1. The Waterways Trust is a national charity working in partnerships with others to promote greater public enjoyment of the UK’s waterways. They raise funds for waterway regeneration, conservation and activity projects. The Trust has three museums at Gloucester, Ellesmere Port and Stoke Bruerne housing nationally important designated collections.

2. The British Urban Regeneration Association (BURA) is the leading membership organisation championing regeneration. The organisation identifies and promotes best practice in regeneration, provides a knowledge, evidence and research base and builds national and international networks of practitioners.

3. The Connswater Community Greenway is an environmental project aimed at delivering some 9kms of linear park, connecting existing green and open spaces along the banks of the Connswater, Loop and Knock rivers, from the Castlereagh Hills, through the centre of East Belfast, to Victoria Park in the Belfast Harbour Estate. It will introduce a number of new bridges, new civic space, outdoor classrooms and river remediation re-instating the Connswater, Knock and Loop rivers as valuable community resources.

4. The project has been developed and led by East Belfast Partnership Board as a response to need identified through research carried out by the Partnership. The Greenway Project will reconnect the communities of East Belfast and restore the rivers as a living community asset. It will create accessible parkland for leisure, recreation and community events and activities. It is envisaged that an environmental project of this scale will significantly increase the interconnections across East Belfast whilst also developing physical linkages to the multi-million pound Titanic Quarter development. The vision is to develop a safe, accessible, sustainable Greenway which is an inspirational living landmark that improves the quality of life for the people of East Belfast now and for future generations.

5. The cost of the project is £32,016,739 and the Department for Social Development is providing £3,208,983 of the total funding from the Neighbourhood Renewal Investment Fund. Other contributors are Belfast City Council and the Big Lottery Fund.

6. The Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy has four interlinking strategic objectives:

• Community Renewal – to develop confident communities that are able and committed to improving the quality of life in their areas.
• Economic Renewal – to develop economic activity in the most deprived neighbourhoods and connect them to the wider urban economy.
• Social Renewal – to improve social conditions for the people who live in the most deprived neighbourhoods through better co-ordinated public services and the creation of safer environments.
• Physical Renewal – to help create attractive, safe and sustainable environments in the most deprived neighbourhoods.

7. Media enquiries to DSD Information Office on 028 9082 9078 Out of office hours please contact the Duty Press Officer via pager number 07699 715 440.