£102m Strabane town centre regeneration project detailed by Council

Officers gave a presentation on the 10-year project, and predicted a financial deal by Spring next year, at a Council meeting on Monday, December 18.

According to The Council’s Chief Executive, John Kelpie, the project aims to ‘reimagine and revitalise’ Strabane through the creation of a new North West Regional College (NWRC) campus, a primary healthcare hub and a new leisure centre in the vicinity of the canal basin.

Plans also include a new pedestrian bridge, which will drive footfall through whole town by creating a link between the outskirts and town centre.

Mr Kelpie said the project’s ultimate objective is to make private investment commercially viable on sites which have been ‘underutilised for decades’.

Council officers said the project’s original investment estimate, of £79m, had increased to £102m due to inflation and other factors.

Funding will be provided by the City Deal Inclusive Future Fund (£50m), the Department of Health (£18.2m), the Department for Infrastructure (£4.4m) and the Council (£29.4m).

Sperrin independent District Councillor Paul Gallagher said he was pleased the project was “starting to look real”, but was concerned that a 10-year plan would be ‘very hard to control over that long period’, due to changes in material costs and inflation.

“How do we get it moving as quickly as possible, so we minimise that risk?” he asked. “Strabane has been waiting for over ten years for this, we’ve had headlines saying ‘this is happening’ so how do we make it happen now?”

Mr Kelpie said their highly-detailed report was essential to start the project quickly and, at the current stage of development, a functioning Executive isn’t required.

“The scale and enormity that has gone into this to date is quite staggering,” he said. “And endorsement today and getting them into the system is the first part.

“The second part is to drive forward for appraisal of business cases and the better the input, the quicker the output. We’re aiming for a financial deal by Spring or Summer next year.

“We’re working with the Central Government and can’t get a clear answer on whether financial dealing’s possible without an Executive.

“It’s not impeding the process at this time, but there will come a point where it does or doesn’t require an Executive.”

Sperrin Sinn Féin District Councillor Paul Boggs said the project was like “all buses coming at once” for Strabane, and that he can’t wait to see these new facilities “slap bang in the middle of the town centre”.

“I think it’ll create a hub of activity for young people and the benefits are multifaceted,” Cllr Boggs said. “A lot of business highlight that this part of Strabane gives nothing to the town as it stands.”

“What we’re hopefully doing will make it a key part of Strabane. I look forward to seeing where we go next and hope that, after Christmas, there will be Ministers in place to sign anything off.”

Ballyarnett SDLP District Councillor Brian Tierney praised the project as a “blueprint to transform Strabane town centre”, but was also concerned about risks associated with a ten-year project.

“It’s something we all should be excited about,” Cllr Tierney said. “But I’ve some concerns around it. Nobody could’ve predicted a global pandemic, a cost-of-living crisis and soaring prices, so I’m slightly nervous around the delivery point of this project because of that unpredictability.”

“The amount of work going on, and what we’re trying to achieve, is tremendous and I would like to see it pushing onto the next stage very quickly.”

“We’re all concerned about risk,” Mr Kelpie said. “Part of the challenge at the minute is this degree of risk which, a number of years ago, didn’t have to be countenanced for capital projects.

“So much risk now has to be built in to capital projects, and that was part of the problem we have faced: inflation risk, construction risk, actual risk.

“The projects are risks, but we’ve looked at inflationary risk for each year and have come up with ‘crystal ball’ figures based on guidance and public data.”

Andrew Balfour,

Local Democracy Reporter