The crossing request by the council was made in early 2021, agreed by DfI in 2022, and still nothing has been done.
A Belfast councillor has confronted a Stormont official over what he described as the “pantomime” over a South Belfast road crossing, which has still not appeared almost five years after an initial request.
The saga surrounding the creation of a road crossing on Knockbreda Road in South Belfast rolls on, after local Lisnasharragh SDLP Councillor Séamas de Faoite confronted Stormont reps during the annual Department for Infrastructure presentation before the council at Belfast City Hall this week.
Councillors and MLAs from across the city have been airing their frustration at the amount of time it is taking for a simple piece of infrastructure to be approved and delivered.
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The Stormont Department for Infrastructure earlier this year demanded another consultation on the matter, while council members have argued there has already been sufficient consultation, and have alleged a handful of residents are holding up the process, over car parking issues.
It has been nearly five years since Belfast councillors started the ball rolling for the creation of a new Knockbreda Road puffin crossing, which was in part agreed upon as a means to facilitate the reopening of an old gate at Cherryvale Playing Fields. The crossing request by the council was made in early 2021, agreed by DfI in 2022, and still nothing has been done.
At a special meeting of the Belfast Council City Growth and Regeneration Committee on Wednesday (November 26), Councillor De Faoite asked Stormont officials: “I understand there are resource problems within the department, but we are getting to the point where even the minister’s private office is coming back saying they are not receiving responses to issues. It is becoming incredibly frustrating for us to go back to constituents.
“The confused and mixed messages coming from different officials within the department just leads me to despair, and that is the point residents are at. Their elected representatives across multiple parties are having to say to them “we cannot get an answer.” And the answers we do get are all different, and they are all conflicting. It leads to a sense that nothing progresses.”
He said this was the case with the proposed Knockbreda Road crossing. He said: “We have some people saying the Minister is giving instructions that it must go ahead. I have sought updates on a number of occasions since the start of September, and I still haven’t received anything.
“It says (in the latest report) it has gone back to the design stage. I’m not really sure what is left to design at this point, because we have had two public consultations, further engagement with neighbours impacted, and it just feels as though nothing is moving. When are we getting our crossing? Because we are sick of waiting.”
A DfI official replied: “I appreciate there has been delays on this, and apologies for that. The crossing there, we had one ready to go, and then there was a widened access into a house that we had not realised had planning permission.
“That has meant we had to redesign it, not a complete redesign, but it is to make sure it can still fit in the space we had intended. That is being done at the moment, and we hope in the next few months that will be ready to go.”
Councillor de Faoite asked: “Surely you were consulted on the planning application?”
The DfI officer replied: “Perhaps, we probably were, yes. But the people being consulted on that wouldn’t be the same people designing the crossing. The same way the people in the council approving that application weren’t aware the council was trying to progress this. It happens on both sides.”
Councillor de Faoite said: “That is just madness. I know this is an issue within the department because I know political representatives from a number of parties continue to pressure the department on this one. If this was built when it was first promised, that particular issue would never have arisen.
“The funds we had identified to pay for it have now disappeared. The latest one MLA was told is that this is now sitting fourth on the list, so it could be another four years before it is constructed.” He said: “This is just a pantomime, there is no other way of putting it.”
The DfI official said: “I am not aware of it moving down the list, I think it is still a priority that we will deliver as soon as we have the design.”
Councillor de Faoite said: “I know, but in Realspeak, if it is number four on the list, and you only do one a year in the city of Belfast, then it is four years away.”
He added: “The department has to get its act together on this, and this has to be a priority, because people have lost faith in DfI to actually respond to a very serious road safety issue. This is a community where there are a lot of children, a lot of schools, where there is cross party political support… It should not be delayed to this extent.
“We had residents out of the street a couple of Saturdays ago, there were about 40 people turned up on a freezing cold November morning. That will continue. I cannot express to you the amount of frustration there is in the local area, that this has not been delivered.”
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