Last week, our editorial focused on the economic prospects of West Belfast between now and 2050. In response, North Belfast native Paul Carlin penned his own thoughts on the ongoing transformation of North Belfast.
YEARS ago when Ulster University were talking about opening a new campus in York Street they had big stakeholder meetings to try and sell the idea to the North Belfast community and of course it was met with a bit of dissent and cynicism from most of the people in the room.
I guess we were just not used to people pushing to invest in our area. At one of those meetings I was having a coffee with a few of the delegates and one of them said that although they had done all the research and ran all the numbers, there would be an effect from the new city centre campus that we just won’t be able to imagine until it actually happened.
Obviously this person was from UU and they really wanted to build a campus in the town but I do remember thinking that that was a very exciting thing to hear for our area.
Well my goodness did that turn out to be understatement of the decade. For now, post- arrival of the new city centre campus, North Belfast is flying.
We were always very lucky because we always had beautiful housing stock to generally suit everyone, the magnificence of Cavehill, the joy of the Waterworks and Alexandra Park and a rich, creative, community driven, soulful bunch of wonderful people on our doorstep.
Although it’s the classic, ‘It's taken years to become an overnight success’, it’s still great to see it happening.
The growth has been driven by people wanting to buy a house in an area where they have small, independent businesses on their doorstep, nice spaces to bring their families and walk their dogs.
Don’t get me wrong, we still need plenty fixed...we are still suffering the York Street Interchange debacle, which is really holding us back and affecting the health and wellbeing of the people living around the mess that it is there.
We also can boast that we have the very first park run on the whole island, established by the legendary Matt Shields in the Waterworks. These factors helped grow and evolve the local businesses and then from there it snowballed.
Bigger investors from outside the area saw what was going on and wanted a slice of the action so now we have several destination businesses opening and the great news is that it's not necessarily about gentrification. Because we already knew what we had, it's more like amplification!
NORTH BELFAST BACKDROP: Cave Hill
We know who we were as an area and I think that is our secret weapon. Organisations like Clifton House, The Duncairn Centre, Belfast Buildings Trust, Ashton, New Lodge Arts North City Business Park, Friends of St Joe's Sailortown, Newington and Grove Housing Associations, Newington Credit Union, Crusaders and Cliftonville Football Clubs and Cavehill Community Choir to name but a few have been working away, investing in people and helping to bring change for years. With the depth of that foundation we will definitely get there.
Don’t get me wrong, we still need plenty fixed. We need to look at our transport routes — we are still suffering the York Street Interchange debacle, which is really holding us back and affecting the health and wellbeing of the people living around the mess that it is there.
We are still in need of some more social housing and we need significant investment in our streetscapes and cycling infrastructure but at least this will be money well-spent as the area is already demonstrating growth. We are not asking for more than any community deserves for helping to build and nurture better spaces and environments for their citizens to thrive and feel valued in.
So get over North. We’d love to see you, look after you and have a bit of craic with you sometime soon.
Paul Carlin (above) is the owner of Carlin Hair and a member of the boards of both Clifton House and North City Business Park.
