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Shaping
Our Future, the new regional development strategy for Northern Ireland |
In
the Good Friday Agreement, the British government gave a commitment to
"make rapid progress" with a new regional development strategy
which it had already commissioned. The Secretary of State Dr Marjorie
Mowlam launched the process of preparing a Regional Strategic Framework
for Northern Ireland with the publication of a consultation document Shaping
Our Future, Towards a Strategy for the Development of the Region in June
1997.
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former Department of the Environment (DOE) was keen to produce a plan that
represented an agreed vision on the future development of Northern Ireland
up to the year 2025. It commissioned a consortium to facilitate consultation
with voluntary and community groups. The consortium, which comprised the
Urban Institute of the University of Ulster, The Department of Environmental
Planning at the Queen's University Belfast and Community Technical Aid (NI),
consulted 477 Voluntary and Community groups and the DOE consulted directly
with 116 bodies. The consultation process influenced the Draft Regional
Strategic Framework launched by the Environment Minister Lord Dubbs on 8
December 1998. |
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The
Shaping Our Future document outlines plans to make Derry/Londonderry the
economic and cultural hub of the North West and Belfast a "compact
and thriving" metropolitan area. The document envisages the development
of "major service centres" at Antrim, Ballymena, Coleraine, Craigavon,
Enniskillen and Omagh. There would also be "key service centres"
at Armagh, Ballycastle, Ballymoney, Banbridge, Cookstown, Downpatrick, Larne,
Limavady, Newtownards, Magherafelt and Strabane.
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former Department of the Environment then appointed an independent panel
to conduct an examination into the Draft Regional Strategic Framework for
Northern Ireland. The panel's examination took five weeks and involved some
70 hours of debate on the issues. Their report, which was published in February
2000, concluded, "that the draft Regional Strategic Framework provides
a sound basis for advance". |
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final draft of the Regional Strategic Framework will be brought before the
Assembly by the end of 2000 for discussion and an agreed Shaping Our Future
document will be published sometime later. |
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