Urban Villages Initiative
A headline action within the NI Executive’s Together: Building a United Community (T:BUC) Strategy
| Current Status | Active |
|---|---|
| Key Contact |
|
| Project Website | Visit Website |
| Category | Social Infrastructure |
Project Description
The Urban Villages Initiative is a headline action of the Together: Building a United Community (T:BUC) Strategy. Designed to improve good relations and develop thriving places where there has previously been a history of deprivation and community tension.
The Urban Villages Initiative is shaped and delivered in partnership with local communities and has three core aims:
- To foster positive community identities
- To build community capacity
- To improve the physical environment
The initiative delivers a range of community-led, cross-cutting, and capital projects through a collaborative approach with councils, government departments and local community organisations, with a good relations focus; for the benefit of people living, working in, and visiting the Urban Village areas.
The five Urban Village areas include
Derry~Londonderry: Bogside, Fountain & Bishop Street.
South Belfast: Sandy Row, Donegall Pass & the Markets.
North Belfast: Ardoyne & Greater Ballysillan.
East Belfast (EastSide): Newtownards Road, Grampian Avenue to Bridge End.
West Belfast: Colin Area.
Project Status
The Urban Villages Initiative continues to invest in the five Urban Village areas by supporting organisations to develop projects and programmes aimed at improving people’s lives by creating and sustaining thriving places. It continues to emphasise the unique focus the Executive Office can bring as a central department in ensuring the successful delivery, sustainability and full benefits realisation from major capital and social investment.
Maximise Sustainable Impact
Under the current Capital Plan, Ministers and the Department will drive a c£124.6m (including partnership funding) investment in community infrastructure across the five areas. To date, 58 capital projects (totalling £47.5m) have been completed. Together with a further 13 major projects completing over the next 3-5 years, this physical, people focused transformation will make a significant and high-profile contribution to new Programme for Government (PfG) priorities and provide a legacy for the Urban Villages (UV) programme that continues to support communities. This ambition is more than physical regeneration alone. A key goal is to establish a connected and collaborative network of new or enhanced facilities, led by grassroots organisations, and with capacity to act as ‘centres of gravity’ amplifying good relations, regeneration and wider social, economic and other PfG outcomes within and across UV areas.
Realising the full potential and benefits of this community infrastructure and investment is paramount. This will ensure these organisations and facilities maximise impact, achieve sustainability and thrive beyond the construction phase of each project. This enhanced community infrastructure will bring together and support more people from diverse backgrounds through the programmes, activities and opportunities it enables. The facilities and on-the-ground partnerships can host additional services delivered by a range of other groups, businesses, agencies, departments and programmes. The value of this is reinforced by the launch of the draft PfG and related TEO and cross-departmental objectives.
Each major capital project, and the network they are part of, must be an enabling platform for wider and longer-term collaborations amplifying and sustaining the impact of UV. Maximising impact, strengthening and realising the full potential of this community infrastructure to include both physical and social, will be supported by prioritising capacity building of community project promoters undertaking significant UV capital projects. This moves programme focus going forward to supporting and facilitating the development and organisational capacity of groups who will manage capital facilities and who will lead on realising the connected and collaborative ambitions of the capital plan in each locality. This will ensure project promoters meet capacity needs and sustainability beyond the tenure of capital construction.
A revised Urban Village programme in current areas will now focus on:
- Capacity Building, Operational Readiness and Sustainability
- Supporting Social Infrastructure and best use of facilities as a Shared Space
