Derry & Strabane Council demand answers from department over business case for Northlands £1m

At a recent meeting of council’s Health and Community Committee meeting Sinn Féin councillor Sandra Duffy proposed that council write to the Minister for Health, UUP MLA Mike Nesbitt, asking the department to reconsider recent funding cuts to Derry’s Northlands Addiction Treatment Centre.

At the April Full Council meeting, Councillor Duffy made an amendment to the motion, seeking clarity on the progress of plans to provide £1 million in funding through NDNA.

“We understand that this funding is contingent on a business case from the department,” the amendment stated. “So was this business case submitted?

“Was it successful, and if so where has the money gone?”

The amendment also asks the department to outline “what they are doing to support addiction services in the district”.

Councillor Duffy said: “We were all in agreement at that Committee around the important work that the Northlands Centre does and we know the importance that it has within our communities.

“There was a suggestion in NDNA that £1 million should be allocated to an addiction centre, and I know that Colm Eastwood had election literature last year saying he had secured it for the Northlands Centre.

“However I have not heard confirmation of that from any other quarter, so we really need to get clarity on the £1 million.”

People Before Profit councillor Shaun Harkin supported the amendment and said the public “expect us as a council to do whatever we can to protect the Northlands Centre.

“The £1 million that was agreed in the NDNA, there seems to be talk about that money being repurposed for something else,” he added.

“We need to have an expanded Northlands Centre with more services that can meet the needs of our residents and this is very much at the centre of their longer-term plans, so we have to be united in demanding the £1 million.

“It seems to me it was committed to from the British Government and we have to hold them to account.

“We also have to hold Stormont to account that, if that money was promised and committed, it can’t be spent for something else.

“We actually need to prioritise that for Derry and the North West to meet our addiction services.”

UUP Alderman Darren Guy argued that there was “not a a withdrawal of funding” at the Northlands Centre.

“Core funding was an application which Northlands were unsuccessful with,” he said. “The minister commissioned NICVA (Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action) to facilitate a new core grand scheme, given that the previous scheme had a closed shop for around 20 years [so] no charity which was formed in the last 20 years could really apply.

“Criteria were drawn up by voluntary and community groups, not the department. The Northlands application was unsuccessful, and we are as bitter about that as anybody else.

“The minister said he will meet with Northlands at some stage, and he will review the new scheme because he feels that there were high numbers of unsuccessful applications.

“We support this motion as we’re fully behind Northlands and what they represent, and we want to know where the £1 million went as well.”