Youth club plans in Ballynahinch Edges closer

Youth club plans in Ballynahinch Edges closer

18 May 2016

THE likelihood of a Ballynahinch youth club taking over one of the town’s biggest eyesores moved a step closer this week.

The Edge Youth Club has outgrown its current Windmill Street premises and wants to construct a new complex at the Square on the site of a partially constructed extension to the Market House.

Only the steel super-structure of the proposed building was ever erected before the costs of the project outstripped the available finance leading to the collapse of the initiative.

The site is currently owned by Newry, Mourne and Down Council which cannot afford to develop the site and is hoping the Edge proposal comes to fruition.

Council officials are to help The Edge secure funding for the development costs but it was always unlikely that these grants would cover the entire costs leaving youth centre officials in the difficult position of having to raise a considerable sum of money.

This week the council’s powerful Strategy, Policy and Resources Committee agreed to examine the possibility that the local authority could pay any shortfall in the estimated £650,000 development costs of the project.

Council director, Eddie Curtis, went to the committee this week asking for approval to work with the Edge to identify funding for the project. Peace Four funding is imminent and there is the possibility of Rural Development Fund grants but Mr Curtis said his officials will examine the possibility of the council providing “capital assistance” if the funding falls short of the full development costs.

The council would then grant a 25 year lease for the facility but would not contribute to any of the annual running costs.

Mr Curtis’ request was approved by the council although there was some resistance. Sinn Fein councillor Stephen Burns said while he had no problem with the Edge’s plans and agreed something needed to be done with the eyesore, he did not agree that capital funding should be paid out.

“I don’t think we should grant assistance,” he said. “I don’t think we should be putting capital money into it because our rates are tight enough as it is.

“If we do this we are creating a precedent and we will have to follow this through in the future. For example, the changing rooms at the Bann Road in Castlewellan have been condemned. If someone comes to us with a project and asks us to put in capital funding then we will have no choice but to agree because we did with the Edge.

“The floodgates will be open and that is a bad situation,” said Mr Burns.

However, Ballynahinch DUP councillor, Garth Craig, said the Edge is doing excellent cross community work in Ballynahinch, especially with its suicide awareness programme.

“People are being validated every month and I welcome the fact that the council is doing what it can,” said Mr Craig.

His DUP colleague, William Walker, described the project as the “final piece in the jigsaw” for Ballynahinch.

“If we don’t go along with this that building will lie there for another 10 or 15 years,” he said. “The group that wants to take this forward works with everybody in the community doing a lot of work in the wider Ballynahinch area.”