Star Fort’s ancient status and listed buildings have slowed progress at Ebrington site in Derry, committee told

Dr. Mark Browne, Director of Strategic Policy, Equality and Good Relations at the Executive Office, has said progress on the landmark development site is continuing apace.

Dr. Browne said the Star Fort - built in 1841 and one of the last of its kind in Europe - and several listed buildings necessarily took time to ready for development. But he said money for capital investment was not an issue.

“We have not had a problem with the availability of capital, and, generally, where we have needed the money, it has been there,” Dr. Browne told a briefing of the Executive Office Committee at Stormont.

“It takes time to get the buildings there into a shape where they can be leased out.

“We also have problems because the Star Fort walls are ancient monuments and are older buildings.

“We are working with the private sector to make sure that leases are made available. Good progress has been made across the site, and there is now an agreement in place for licences for all the buildings,” he said.

Foyle MLA Martina Anderson quizzed Dr. Browne on the availability of capital funding for Ebrington.

She said she was concerned that a briefing paper on the TEO’s budgetary requirements for the 2020/21 financial year described £2.3m in capital for Ebrington as ‘non-ring-fenced expenditure’.

“I am a little concerned by that description. Is there a guarantee that that funding will be fully utilised? I am very conscious of where we are at the moment and the difficulties of utilising any funding, but I would not want anything to slide,” said Ms. Anderson.

Dr. Browne replied: “I reassure you that, at present, there is no threat to the availability of funding for Ebrington and that we are waiting to move forward with all the buildings on the site.”

Peter Toogood, Director of finance and corporate services at the TEO added: “The terminology ‘ring-fenced’ is one that the Department of Finance applies, so whenever we say that, we mean that funding is ring-fenced only from a DoF perspective. When we say ‘non-ring-fenced’, that means that it is at the discretion of us in the Department to allocate funding according to where our priorities are, and, as Mark said, capital funding has been made available and allocated to Ebrington to complete the work that has been ongoing there. ‘Ring-fenced’ is a technical term that DOF applies.”