Council hosts Workshop on future plans for the City
September 19, 2016
Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council recently held a workshop looking at how the Council can grow and prosper over the next 20 years, through the creation of an ambitious and visionary Local Development Plan which is currently underway.
Keynote speaker was Mr Waheed Nazir, Strategic Director of Planning and Regeneration infrastructure at Birmingham City Council; part of an integral Council Team which has seen Birmingham transform and regenerate its landscape over the past twenty years, resulting in hundreds of millions of pounds in investment and thousands of new jobs created and affordable homes built.
Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council’s Development Plan 2030 will act as a planning blueprint for the next 15 years, enabling the area to achieve its maximum potential. The Plan will also support a number of strands of the Council’s vision from a social, environmental and economic perspective including economic regeneration, increased manufacturing and retail tourism, job creation and leisure and community in the coming years.
Topics explored through the morning included maximising the economic potential of the City, doing things differently, the West Lisburn Development Plan and the vital importance of transport connectivity throughout the City.
Speaking about the event Mr Nazir said “I was very pleased to have been invited by Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council to participate in the capacity building training on the development of a new local development plan. I hope that by sharing Birmingham’s experience of developing a vision and strategy to drive forward transformation of the city, it will serve as a useful case study that can be drawn upon as Lisburn & Castlereagh embark on the development of their own local plan to maximise the economic potential of the city”.
Planners, elected members and community partners were given the opportunity to explore these ideas and ask questions about the factors and challenges faced in other areas and how these challenges were overcome.
Central to all these discussions was the notion that the new planning powers and community planning responsibilities gave the Council an unprecedented opportunity to develop an ambitious and exciting Local Development Plan that has a real potential to transform Lisburn and Castlereagh for the next generation.
Summing up the event, Chairman of the Council’s Planning Committee, Councillor Alexander Redpath thanked everybody for their involvement in this first of its kind workshop in Lisburn.
“The Council area has experienced a number of disappointments in recent years with a number of planning decisions but we are confident that we can and will move on to a new era of planning in Lisburn.
“Today’s discussions has injected a massive dose of ambition and excitement into what could be achieved here in the City if we are bold and visionary in our thinking.
“How the City will look like in 2030 will be down to our Local Development Plan. Planning is not just about policy. It is about looking at the bigger picture and we will use it as a key economic and regeneration driver for the City in the years to come.
“ Today has certainly provided food for thought and we will do all we can to ensure that planning will work for the City, its residents, visitors and investors, both now and in the future, “ said Councillor Redpath.