New Derry & Strabane Rural Wellbeing Project plan welcomed

At a Governance and Strategic Planning Committee meeting on Tuesday, April 9, Director of Legacy, Oonagh McGillion said Council had previously agreed to support three rural Local Growth Partnerships in the Derg, Faughan and Sperrin wards, with an allocation of £150,000 from a non-recurrent budget, to “develop project capacity with the rural areas”.

The Rural Health and Well-being project includes plans for between 15 and 20 multi-modal rural family support hubs, nature-based health and well-being programmes, and a social enterprise development programme designed to “enable rural communities to sustain and expand key services”.

“I think it really exemplifies the importance of a strategic intervention by Council, in the absence of dedicated resources within these three rural areas,” Ms McGillion said.

“Of the £150,000, £20,000 was use to appoint an external resource to help those three partnerships come together, identify a collective need, and build resilience in the rural community.

“We have very successful urban family support hubs. We don’t have those in rural areas and this project is helping develop those, which is very significant.

“We are entering into the final stages of consultation and working on a target of having it submitted by May 23.”

DUP Alderman Chelsea Cooke agreed that the resources would be “vitally important to the rural community”.

SDLP Councillor Sean Mooney said the rural support hubs would be “a welcome benefit for all those in rural areas”.

Sinn Féin Councillor Antaine Ó Fearghail said the Council need to “strengthen” rural areas.

“We need the services there and must identify the needs in those areas,” Councillor Ó Fearghail concluded. “They just don’t have the services any more, so we welcome this application.”

Andrew Balfour,

Local Democracy Reporter