Planning Matters

Dr Michael Gordon, Turley Consultants Belfast Office Director, gave a most enlightening address Monday 21 August on how his interest in planning was nurtured and learnt. He revealed his fascination in buildings and how they were put up started in the 80’s when he was growing up in Carmoney with its view of the city. This continued in the 90’s when at QUB he learned about planning and its purpose and how it all started from a concern for public health and living standards. He noted that he grew up in a divided city which had lost most of its form through bombings and demolitions and when in Nijmegen, the oldest city in the Netherlands, he learnt about their different approach to developments with intentional planning of neighbourhoods.

He stressed that planning takes time for it to happen and that that the 90’s planning has delivered having led to such developments as the Gasworks, Belfast Harbour, the Waterfront, Landon Plaza, the Victoria Centre and the Titanic Quarter. He affirmed that change in planning powers to local Councils was the biggest shake up in Northern Ireland planning for a generation and was resulting in big changes. There were many Council vision-based projects already in the pipeline focusing on significant city growth, more shopping and more jobs and revealed that the Ulster University move was resulting in catalytic change. He pointed out that currently there were 31 cranes in Belfast and upcoming projects included the new transport hub at the back of the Europa, the Linen Quarter offices, the 16 acre Sirocco works site, the Girdwood site in north Belfast has been transformed in to a state of the art shared space hub which offers first-class leisure, community and education facilities, the Connswater Greenway and the York St. Interchange which will free up a huge traffic bottleneck.

He emphasised that planning was not one person deciding in isolation but other influences play a part: social town planning, empowerment, tenure diversity and noted that planners from another river city, Gothenburg, had visited Belfast and passed on interesting ideas. He concluded that after 25 years of experience he felt planning was all about delivering development and his four phases were: place, policy, process and effect on people.