Agenda item

The Committee was reminded that, at its meeting on 22nd April, it had agreed to defer consideration of an increased request for funding from the Lagan Canal Trust in order to invite a representative from the Trust to make a presentation to the Committee.  The Director of Development reminded the Committee that, since the change of the Council’s boundary on 1st April, the percentage of the Lagan Canal within Belfast had risen from 18% to 22%.  He added that the Trust was seeking a contribution from Belfast City Council of £37,963.20, £42,281.80 and £42,563.84 over the next three financial years.  It was pointed out that, in 2014/2015, the former Council had contributed a sum of £17,341 to the Trust, which had been based on the fact that 18% of the canal lay within the then Council boundary.  The Committee was advised that the Chief Officer of the Lagan Canal Trust, Ms. B. Turnbull, was in attendance and she was admitted to the meeting and welcomed by the Chairperson.

            Ms. Turnbull outlined the work which had been undertaken by the Trust to date and explained that the Trust wished to reopen all twenty-seven locks along the River Lagan and that four of those lay within the Belfast boundary. She explained that the Trust had applied for £1.8m of funding through the EU LIFE programme on Climate Change Adaptation in December 2014 and that that application had now been progressed to the next stage which was due in July 2016. 

            She explained the difficulties which the Trust had faced as a result of recent government budget cuts, despite having reduced their staffing costs to just one officer and one administrative post. She explained that, in order to attract more funding to fulfil the Trust’s objectives, they needed to have staff who could dedicate their time to applying for funding through various streams and programmes. 

            In response to several Members questions as to why the amount requested from the Council had more than doubled for each of the next three years, Ms. Turnbull stated that since the boundary changes on 1st April, an increased section of the River Lagan now fell within the Belfast area. She explained the amount the Trust had requested from all four contributing councils had increased significantly due to the fact that the Trust had been operating on a predicted budget for 2009 for the past 5 years and that, despite letting 3 staff Members go, remaining staffing costs were increasing by 1% each year.  She explained that the funding the Trust had received from DCAL had also been decreased by 11% this year and Ms. Turnbull reiterated that, in order to draw down more funding for the project, hiring additional staff to apply for various streams of funding was now essential.  The Committee thanked Ms. Turnbull for attending and she left the meeting.

            The Chief Executive pointed out to the Members that, as the Departmental budgets had already been agreed, if the Committee agreed to accede to the increased funding request from the Trust that this would impact upon other agreed expenditure and that this decision would then have to be referred to the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee at its meeting on 19th June.

            After discussion, the Committee agreed, subject to the Lagan Canal Trust providing a more detailed breakdown of their business plan, to accede to the request from the Trust and thereby provide funding of £37,963.20 in 2015, £42,281.80 in 2016 and £42,563.84 in 2017 (a total of £122,808.84 over the three year period) subject to the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee approving the additional expenditure as it had not been included in the budget.