Agenda item

            The Head of Economic Initiatives reminded the Committee that, at its meeting on 27th October, 2008, it had received representatives from Westfield Shoppingtowns Limited, William Ewart Properties Limited and the Department for Social Development regarding the latter’s Retail Sequencing Policy and proposals to extend Castlecourt and to develop a new mixed-use scheme to be known as Royal Exchange in the North East Quarter of the City.  Having questioned the deputations and discussed the matter at length, the Committee had agreed that it was opposed to the Retail Sequencing Policy and had requested the Department for Social Development to adopt a position whereby, if Ewarts failed to submit its planning application for the Royal Exchange scheme within nine months, Westfield would be permitted to commence its scheme at Castlecourt.

            The Head of Economic Initiatives reported that, since a period of nine months had elapsed and, to date, no planning application had been submitted by William Ewart Properties Limited, the Council had requested from the Department for Social Development an update of its development agreement with Ewarts.  She tabled for the information of the Members the undernoted letter which the Chairman had received:

“Further to your meeting with Alan Shannon and David Ferguson on 9 September 09 to discuss the status of the Royal Exchange Regeneration Project, Alan has asked me to write to you to set out the Department’s position on the regeneration of Belfast City Centre and provide an update on the Royal Exchange Project for Belfast City Council’s Development Committee.

The Department is continuing to implement its retail-led regeneration policy for the city centre as set out in the ‘BelfastCity Centre Regeneration Policy Statement’ published by the Department in 2004.  The overall aim of the Statement is to strengthen BelfastCity Centre as Northern Ireland’s premier regional shopping destination providing a high quality safe urban environment, attractive to investors, employees, residents and tourists.  The Department is implementing the Statement under five key regeneration policy themes: retail; office/business; tourism/leisure; connectivity/public realm; and, reinforcing city communities.

The re-emergence of BelfastCity Centre as the premier shopping destination in the province is at the heart of the Department’s regeneration policy for the City Centre.  In order to achieve quality retail provision, it is the Department’s aspiration to attract leading European and international brand retailers to the City, while recognising the need to safeguard Belfast’s well-established independent retail market.  The implementation of the retail regeneration policy theme will be achieved by increasing the amount of retail floor space available in the city centre at a pace which the retail market can absorb and expands consumer choice.

This policy theme has been delivered by the opening of Victoria Square in March 2008 providing over 600,000 sq ft of additional retail space, the House of Fraser flagship department store and the introduction of a wide range of new retail brands to the city centre.  The Department is continuing to implement the retail policy through the selection of the Royal Exchange Project, located in the North East Quarter of the city centre, as the next major retail-led regeneration project for Belfast.

The next milestone will be to finalise the Development Agreement for the project.  This will provide the contractual basis for delivering the scheme between the Department and the developer and it will set out the timetable for taking forward the statutory planning approvals required for the project.

As you might expect, it is a detailed and complex document and negotiations on one for a project of this size inevitably take time to complete.  Indeed in this instance we are conscious they have been taking longer than we had anticipated and we have been working very hard to bring them to a close.  It is important to stress, however, that they are consistent with the timescale within which the city centre is likely to be in a position to further expand the retail floor space to a level which the market will be able to absorb.  When they have been completed and we have the necessary internal clearances to execute the Agreement we would be happy to brief the Committee on the way forward with the next stage, which relates to obtaining the necessary statutory planning approvals.  We hope this will be soon.

In the meantime, I should be grateful if the Committee would continue to bear with the Department, maintain its support for the Royal Exchange Project and accept our assurance that we are aiming to finalise the negotiations on the Development Agreement as quickly as possible.”

            The Chairman informed the Members that, during the meeting referred to in the letter, he had tried to get assurances from Departmental officials regarding a timeframe for the Royal Exchange scheme development agreement and he informed the Committee that it was likely that this would be finalised by the end of the year.  However, there was no guarantee that that would be the case.  It had also been ascertained during the meeting that, so far as the Department for Social Development was concerned, the Ewarts scheme was, currently, the only development which was of interest to the Department.  If the Royal Exchange project did not come to fruition, the Department would seek expressions of interest from other developers for a scheme in the North East Quarter, rather than enable the extension to Castlecourt to commence.

            During discussion in the matter, several Members pointed out that the lack of progress associated with the Royal Exchange scheme was resulting in further deterioration in the Donegall Street/Lower Royal Avenue/North Street area and that businesses in that vicinity were concerned at the manner in which the area was becoming run-down.  It was pointed out also that, since this area of the City was frequented by tourists walking from the City centre to Cathedral Quarter, it was important that improvement works be carried out as a matter of urgency.

            Following a lengthy discussion, during which Members expressed their concern at the content of the letter from the Department for Social Development and the comments of the Chairman regarding the meeting which he had had with representatives from the Department, the Committee agreed to invite representatives from Westfield Shoppingtowns Limited and William Ewart Properties Limited to a special meeting in order to receive updates from both companies regarding their proposals to respectively extend Castlecourt and to construct Royal Exchange.  In addition, the Committee agreed to seek a meeting with the Minister for Social Development to discuss the matter and to request from the Minister information as to the engagement which officials within the Department for Social Development had had with Ewarts since the Special Development Committee meeting of 27th October, 2008.