Fresh details unveiled of radical plans to transform Derry city centre and riverfront

Members of Derry City and Strabane District Council were provided with a progress update on the new £65m City Deal Central Riverfront/Strand Road and Walled City/Ebrington project at a special meeting of Derry City & Strabane District Council on Monday.

The plans will include the removal of the Harbour Square and Queen’s Quay roundabouts and development of major new public plazas.

A massive tree-lined space extending from the Peace Bridge to the City Hotel called Harbour Square is envisaged. It will include a new green area adjacent to the Guildhall called Guildhall Gardens.

Tourists and visitors will be met by a far more pedestrian-friendly environment as they decant from the western end of the bridge from where they will be able to walk via a new Peace Park at what is now Whittaker Street into Guildhall Square and the Walled City.

A new University Square at Queen’s Quay Roundabout is also planned.

The concept is for Ulster University, whose School of Medicine will be located on the square, to spill from its current campus at Magee College down onto the riverfront.

Between the two squares a new one-way system is planned with traffic flowing north from Harbour Square along the Strand Road to University Square from where it will flow south along Queen’s Quay and the Foyle.

When the DNA Museum opens in 2026 the council will vacate the Tower Museum which will be repurposed with a new entrance into the Craft Village.

Councillors backed plans to proceed with work on the £65m development. Officers can now work towards submitting an Outline Business Case with the aim of securing funding this summer as part of the overall £280m City Deal programme.

At a press briefing on Monday Eamon Molloy, the council’s strategic projects programme director, said the proposals are currently at ‘high level concept’ stage and would be subject to extensive public consultation and potential amendment.

“What we are trying to do is create a thriving and vibrant riverfront, Strand Road and Walled City, importantly integrating the university into the Strand Road and the riverfront.

“It's about opening up and actually announcing that there is a university here. The university at the moment is behind brick walls and if you came here and you didn't know the city would you know that we were a university city?” he asked.

Joanne Bennison, strategic capital projects manager, said: “Effectively we've got a dual carriageway running down the central riverfront and two, quite large roundabouts, one at the City Hotel and one up at the council offices so it's very much traffic priority in the city and we want to change that.”

She said the plans would make Derry a ‘more pedestrian-focused destination city’.

“It is quite a dramatic change that you are going to see but I think that's what the city needs at this time. It's coming up to scale with other European cities as a key tourist destination space,” she observed.

Ms. Bennison said the traffic proposals have been extensively modelled and work more efficiently than the current system.

Buses will be able to leave the Foyle Street depot and turn right in the direction of destinations like Dublin and Belfast.

The pedestrian-friendly character of the new city centre will hopefully transform how motorists behave.

“We want that when people enter this area of the city the traffic actually slows down because there is a different feel, that there are pedestrian crossings, there's more green space. It feels like a pedestrian-priority area rather than a dual carriageway running down along the river.”

The objective at University Square is similar.

“The idea is that when people approach this area they will feel like they are entering the university campus,” said Ms. Bennison.

The proposals include public realm developments in the Diamond.

“At the minute when you arrive at the Diamond, for tourists or for anyone, it's very much a roundabout, where do I cross here? There is constantly traffic going around it. It's not really a nice place to be,” Ms. Bennison noted.

Derry riverfront to be transformed in multi-million pound makeover to put city on map as vibrant European tourist destination

Among the proposals are the removal of car-parking spaces in the centre of the Diamond only.

“There has been a lot of controversy around car parking lately. We are going to be very careful. This is very much the first phase of what the wider vision will be for the Walled City but in removing the spaces just in the centre of the Diamond we can create a nicer space,” she said.

Paved crossing points in the Diamond and between Castle Street and Richmond Street are other proposals.

The officers insisted the £65m originally allocated for the projects in 2021 cover its ambitions.

Three years ago the replacement of the old Queen’s Quay structure was a factor in the council’s thinking but it has been agreed this work will not be part of the City Deal.

Karen Phillips, director of environment and regeneration, said: “We are working with DfI to try to ensure that that happens at the same time. Our view is that it needs to happen.”

She added: “The core projects that are included in the City Deal are all affordable and also have the construction inflation and optimism-bias factored in.”

The council believe the development of the scheme can pave the way for a further transformation in years to come.

Mr. Molloy said the council will ultimately relocate to a new office at the Peace Park with Ulster University a potential tenant at Strand Road.

Ms. Phillips said conversations have been had in the past about the PSNI vacating Strand Road, which she described as a ‘massive potential opportunity site’.

Mr. Molloy alluded to potential for the bus station to move to the former Derry Visitor and Convention Bureau with the potential for a fourth bridge for buses and pedestrians.

Along with the Centre of Innovation in data analytics, advanced manufacturing & robotics (£39m), the Smart Digital project (£15m), DNA Museum (£12.7m) and School of Medicine (£50m), also endorsed, it takes City Deal investment in Derry city to £180m.

£2m Pennyburn bridge lifted into place under floodlights at Fort George