Council not at fault for gondola failure

Council not at fault for gondola failure

14 May 2025

RESPONSIBILITY for the failure to deliver the £44m controversial gondola ride into the Mournes does not lie with local council officers, the district’s first citizen is insisting.

With fears growing that £30m of the funding earmarked for the ill-fated project could be lost to the district, Newry, Mourne and Down Council chairman Pete Byrne said local authority officials are not to blame for the National Trust refusing to provide a lease for land needed to deliver the “flagship” tourism project.

The £30m was being put up by the Belfast City Region Deal for the Mourne Mountains Gateway Project, with the remainder of the £44m scheme funded by the local authority.

With the scheme now consigned to history, all eyes are on what happens to the £30m as the political fall-out from the conservation charity’s decision continues.

The local authority has no on-the-shelf projects it can immediately put forward for financial help and has already spent over £1m of ratepayers’ money on the failed gondola project, sparking calls for senior management to resign.

The council met with its City Deal partner last week, but is remaining tight-lipped about what was discussed or indeed what happens next in relation to the available funding.

Calls have also been issued for the Audit Office to open an independent investigation and an internal audit into the £1m spend on the gondola project in the absence of the failure to secure the National Trust land lease to be carried out.

An emergency motion was tabled at the local authority’s monthly meeting last week by Mournes councillor, Jill Truesdale, but was batted away to the Mourne Gateway Programme Board with councillors unable to debate it in granular detail.

It was briefly discussed at a meeting of the local authority’s Audit Committee two days later, but was put back to a single item special council meeting being organised for the next few weeks. There are calls for the session to open to the public and not held behind closed doors.

At last week’s full council meeting, Cllr Byrne confirmed an emergency meeting of the Mourne Gateway Programme Board was held 24 hours after National Trust confirmed it was not providing a lease.

He said several proposals were discussed, one of which was to “call” the National Trust to be in front of the full council to answer questions on the decision to pull out.

The chairman said officers were asked to engage with the Belfast Region City Deal to find out what the next steps are for the local authority going forward in order that the organisation is informed on what it can and can’t do and can inform to the public in terms of trying to keep the £30m in the area.

Cllr Byrne described the National Trust decision not to provide a lease as “disappointing for people who have been working on the project”.

He said there was a “robust and long discussion” on where the decision left the council and wanted to make it clear that the failure or pulling out of the project does not fall at the feet of the council officers who were carrying through requests made through a Memorandum of Understanding.

“This was signed by the National Trust and the council and that is exactly what we were working on in the programme board to the letter,” he explained.

“It asked for us to carry out an independent environmental assessment (EIA) and that is what this council was doing at the request of the National Trust and following the report of the EIA, that we would move to lease discussions. 

“That was the position and, unfortunately, the National Trust has pulled out before that EIA is in front of us.

“We are trying our best to get more from the BRCD panel. It is not in our hands on what to do with that funding, but in the hands of the BRCD panel.”

Mr Byrne added: “We will do everything we can to retain that money. I would ask that anyone who has ideas or alternatives for the project to contact senior management.”

It was agreed at last week’s Audit Committee meeting to hold a special session in the next number of weeks ahead of the next scheduled meeting in July with a debate to be held at tomorrow night’s Strategy, Policy and Resources Committee.

A Newry, Mourne and Down Council spokeswoman said the organisation issued a statement on May 1 in relation to this matter and “continues to work through the detail and options with our partners”.

The council said it was not in position to provide any further comment at this time.