The project will focus on Eastside Greenways
The Connswater Greenway(Image: David Young/PA Wire)
East Belfast is to get £1.6million for a community climate action project aiming to help people in disadvantaged areas connect with climate change issues.
Eastside Greenways, in partnership with Belfast City Council and Queens University, has been successful in an application to the National Lottery Climate Action Fund, to be delivered over five years.
The National Lottery funding contribution will be £1,348,423.03, while the total project is going to cost £1,603,328.62. Match funding for the outstanding £254,905.59 will be provided through Eastside Greenways endowment funding agreement with Belfast City Council.
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Elected members at the Belfast City Council People and Communities Committee this week noted details of the project and agreed that City Hall officers sign the partnership agreement. As part of the project, Belfast City Council will be allocated £130,000 over five years for data collection.
This funding will support EastSide Greenways to engage communities in climate action projects, using a 16km urban green and blue space cycle and walkway through the heart of East Belfast. The idea is that people living in areas of disadvantage are empowered to connect to the conversation about climate change at a local level, and shape how climate action could improve their community and the lives of the people in it.
Community partners include East Belfast Community Development Agency, The Larder, and East Belfast Anti-Poverty Alliance made up of 21 organisations including Sure Start, East Belfast Mission, In This Together, The Trussell Trust and Barnardo’s.
A council committee report on the project states: “The main project objective is to develop a nature recovery network increasing habitat extent, condition and connectivity, for nature and people.
“Conservation management plans will be developed for key sites and habitats, with enhancement plans for a suite of sites across Belfast. The project aligns with the council’s wider Biodiversity and Climate Action Programmes.
“It will support our ongoing work to bolster and update the council’s site ecological data, as well as complementing the council’s externally funded projects.”
The report states in the first year there will be “a selection of ecological surveys of the Greenway which will help inform community conversations and new, more sustainable ways of maintaining public spaces.”
At the People and Communities Committee meeting this week, Green Party Councillor Anthony Flynn said: “Particularly important are the ecological surveys and the conservation management plan. I can really see what the impact of this could be for us as a council, because it can really complement what we are trying to do in our own open spaces.”
He added: “The young people getting involved with this project are really looking forward to it.”
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