Motion no: 27
Conference recognises the importance of cultural and artistic endeavour to society and the significance of historical areas such as the Assembly Buildings, Rosemary Street, North Street and Donegall Street, including North Street Arcade and Writers’ Square that makes up part of the Cathedral Quarter (CQ).
Conference notes with concern that despite this area’s historical importance, distinct character, and its current prominence as the beating heart of Northern Ireland’s arts and cultural scene, the purchased by the investment company Castlebrooke of this area and the proposals for widespread demolition, and the replacement of independent businesses and arts organisations with generic retail & offices.
The SIPTU Northern Ireland District Committee now fears that Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter is facing enormous change and reiterates that good development must be appropriate to the city’s needs. It can and should meet the most audacious ambitions for what we want this city to be: distinctive, resilient, liveable, shared, and connected
Conference recognises that the Cathedral Quarter, though in need of development, has an established place in the life of the city centre that makes it a lynch-pin for delivering on those ambitions and that resurgent urbanism celebrates and embraces city life.
Conference further recognises that this new Belfast urbanism prioritises the essential infrastructure of life – bustling streets, housing, public space, employment, arts and culture, efficient public transport, walkability, childcare and schools, and a city economy that caters for local traders and small businesses as well as the large multinationals.
Conference therefore calls on NIC-ICTU Committee to actively support the ‘Save CQ’ campaign that is promoting investment that encourages a culturally flourishing, architecturally distinctive, independent, public, and liveable community in the historic centre of the city. In doing so, conference calls on the NIC-ICTU Committee commit to:
- making active responses (at minimum a written representation) to consultations on relevant planning applications, and recommend that constituent member unions should co-sign;
- establish a sub-group or task force to increase the unions’ capacity on planning issues, covering existing housing campaigns but also giving consideration to other distributive justice issues like access to amenities, public transport, employment, public space, healthy environments; arts and cultural development etc. NIC-ICTU would work with relevant agencies and campaign groups in order to ensure an informed participation;
- share research and analysis relating to economic arguments underpinning planning applications with relevant campaign groups, e.g. Save Cathedral Quarter.
