Ebrington events and car parking responsibility transfer to Derry & Strabane Council considered

At July’s Governance and Strategic Planning Committee meeting members agreed for Council officers to draft three Service Level Agreements (SLAs), for council to assume responsibility for cleaning and maintenance, management and car parking, and events, animation and promotion at the former military site.

Director of Business and Culture, Stephen Gillespie, said the the Executive Office’s (TEO) ultimate aim was to transfer ownership to the council and, while members were content that the site might eventually be under the control of council, they stated that this could not be at a cost to the ratepayers.

Mr Gillespie added: “A series of meetings took place and an agreed process for organising large-scale licensed events on Ebrington Square was devised with council assistance [and] officers then oversaw this process for 2024-2026.

“In recent months TEO has reiterated its desire to transfer ownership of the site, discussions with officials restarted, [and] a meeting took place in May with TEO officials to discuss how this might progress.

“Officers [will] work together to draft three SLAs to define the scope and appropriate budget and present these to elected members for consideration in early Autumn.

“Any agreement would be on a cost recovery basis to ensure no cost to ratepayers, [and] the draft SLAs will be brought back to members for consideration in October.”

Sinn Féin councillor Christopher Jackson said residents close to Ebrington have voiced “concerns around events and maintenance”, particularly the level of traffic.

“It makes sense if a site is managed by a local council, people that are from here and embedded here, and have the views of people here at heart. We have seen how decisions taken in Belfast have led to disastrous consequences, not least around events where there was widespread anger amongst the people of the city and district. We’ve seen how that has been handled by council and how things can be done better.”

DUP Alderman Chelsea Cooke added: “I would like to see our council be in the control of Ebrington but there’s still more discussions that need to be had, so I look forward to seeing a further paper being brought back with the draft SLAs.”