NEWS & EVENTS :: Friday 4th July 2008

BETTER BELFAST LAUNCHES ITS SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT

The Better Belfast Programme launched its seventh annual report at the Waterfront Hall on 14 March. The report celebrates the projects completed in the last year that have been funded through the Landfill Communities Fund programme.

Better Belfast was established in 1999 as a partnership between Belfast City Council and the charity Bryson House, now Bryson Charitable Group, to provide a distribution mechanism for grants through the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme, to community and not-for-profit groups across the city to enable them to carry out work to improve our environment.

Originally available only within the Belfast City Council boundary, in 2004 the scheme extended to ten additional local authority areas whose councils used the Dargan Road Landfill Site.

The initiative has meant that the communities in Antrim, Ards, Ballymoney, Carrickfergus, Castlereagh, Lisburn, Larne, Newtownabbey, North Down and Strabane can now benefit from the distribution programme.

The theme of this years report was ‘Enriching our environment – promoting well-being’ and the range of projects featured in the report more than demonstrates this.

Projects featured included the land management schemes by the Ulster Wildlife Trust at Lagan Meadows and Bog Meadows in Belfast, and at Slievenacloy in Lisburn. Funding has provided warden support as well as practical changes to the sites that have protected habitat and species, whilst making the sites more accessible to the public. The RSPB Harbour Reserve in Belfast which is a valuable breeding ground for many priority bird species has had predator fencing installed which will now protect the birds during their breeding season. Better Belfast also funded the creation of breeding islands and the reinstatement of a reed-bed in one of the harbour lagoons. The Woodland Trust ‘Tree For All’ programme was able to plant more than 2700 new trees across Belfast, Antrim and Down, and Sustrans – who promote sustainable transport – have commenced the building of the Comber Greenway, a 9-mile pathway adjacent to the old railway line running from Belfast to Comber.

Projects aimed at helping us reduce our waste included the Bryson Charitable Group’s ‘Sort It Out!’ Education Programme which now provides free education programmes to primary schools across Northern Ireland through funding from both Better Belfast and the Environment & Heritage Service. Bryson Charitable Group are also launching a white goods refurbishment and recycling programme that will divert bulky domestic goods (cookers, fridges, washing machines, etc) from the waste stream and create employment through refurbishment. The project will be run with Ulster Supported Employment, the largest employer of people with disabilities in the province.

The Better Belfast programme has now provided funding of over £4million and will soon announce the projects to benefit from its final release of funding in May. With the Dargan Road landfill site closing at the end of this month, the programmes activities will come to an end when the final projects have completed by June of 2008.

Joan Roberts, Chairman of the Better Belfast Board commented, “Everyone who participated in the organisation and implementation of projects is to be congratulated fro enriching our environment and promoting well-being in our community”.

Martin Doherty, Business Development and Contracts Manager from Belfast City Council’s Waste Management Department, commended the programme and its contribution in improving green spaces and promoting education across the city.

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