Councillor says the status pulls all the cities environment work “towards one particular standard”
Belfast could become a “National Park City” after officials at City Hall were tasked to look into the matter.
Elected representatives at a recent Belfast City Council committee meeting agreed to scope out the possibility of the city becoming the first of its kind in Northern Ireland, after supporting a Green Party motion in collaboration with the Alliance Party.
No city on the island of Ireland has the status as yet, but Galway has put out a mission statement to be the first on the island with the designation.
The Belfast motion, by Councillor Áine Groogan, was forwarded to the August meeting of the council’s Climate and City Resilience Committee.
READ MORE: Stormont says it has no money to give Belfast Culture Night this year
READ MORE: New 164-bedroom hotel approved for junction of Donegall Pass and Botanic Avenue
It states: “This council recognises the ambition set out in the Belfast Agenda that Belfast will be a “vibrant, attractive, connected and environmentally sustainable” city by 2035, as well as somewhere “where everyone experiences good health and wellbeing.”
“[It also] celebrates the good work already happening right across the city that will help us achieve this aim; alleyway greening, community growing projects, the Blackstaff greenway, development of a neighbourhood net-zero framework, the One Million Trees project, and many more initiatives working to improve biodiversity, make green spaces more accessible and help make Belfast a greener and cleaner city.
“The council believes that a city where people, places and nature are better connected is one that not only helps us to tackle our climate and biodiversity crisis but leads to better health and wellbeing outcomes for everyone in the city.
“As such, this council commits to supporting the move to become a National Park City, convening stakeholders from across the city, improving support to empower local communities, bringing together existing projects, and developing a clear roadmap to how we collectively can restore nature for the benefit of people, wildlife and planet.”
The National Park City Foundation states on its website: “National Parks are defined differently around the world. They are special places where we have a better relationship with nature, culture and heritage and can enjoy and develop ourselves.
“Combining the long-term and large-scale vision of National Parks with cities has the potential to shift our collective understanding of what and who a city is for. National Park Cities are not National Parks. But they are inspired by them.”
It adds: “With the majority of the world’s population now living in urban areas, the eyes of the world are on cities. National Park Cities are a way to rethink cities, their futures and how we inhabit them. They will improve the health of their citizens and play their part in stabilising our common climate, and restoring the natural world. Our aim is for there to be at least 25 National Park Cities by 2025.
“A National Park City is a place, a vision and a city-wide community that is acting together to make life better for people, places and nature. A defining feature is the widespread commitment to act so people, culture and nature work together to provide a better foundation for life and so we can enjoy ourselves too.”
A council officer said at the August meeting of the council’s Climate and City Resilience Committee: “It will be considered by officers and a detailed report will come back to the committee, on the implications of the content of the notice.”
Councillor Áine Groogan said: “There is a lot of information out there about what a National Park City is, and we have to acknowledge the amount of work that is already happening in the city, and within the council.
“But what a National Park City does is (give) an overarching goal, that tries to pull together all those various other strands of work, to work towards one particular standard. It is well documented in terms of not just its environmental outcomes, but also in terms of people’s health and wellbeing.
“We already know, by looking at tree coverage across the city, it is lower in areas of lower social and economic status, where air quality is worse. There really is a social and economic dimension to all of this as well, which is why we should be driving towards this.”
She added: “There already is a campaign growing, and initial work has begun, in terms of getting this status. What I am asking in the motion is that Belfast Council really buys into it, and gets behind it.
“I would like more information to come back about the process, what is required. I would also like to invite Neil Galway from the Planning Department at Queens and Connor McKinney from Wild Belfast, who have been doing a lot of work in the background, and who have launched the application to start the process. 200 signatures are required to do that.”
Elected representatives agreed to receive a presentation from the two men.
For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.
#Campaign #Belfast #National #Park #City #gains #momentum #City #Hall #commissions #report
