Belfast City Council: Bolder Vision

Overview

The first, an Active Travel initiative, is exploring market interest in providing secure cycle parking sites throughout the city to help promote active, environmentally responsible travel.

The second, ‘Grey to Green’, is inviting Belfast businesses, social enterprises, charities, and schools to submit expressions of interest in a fund to support green projects in the city centre.

Belfast City Council Chief Executive John Walsh said: “We want to see our city centre become safer, greener, more connected, and more accessible, so that’s why we’re looking for organisations to take forward Active Travel secure parking sites and greening the city projects.

“For the Active Travel secure cycle parking, we’ll consider Expressions of Interest from operators proposing to use carparks, carparks or repurpose vacant shop units to deliver and maintain safe, secure, and self-sustaining cycle parking.

“For Grey to Green, we plan to fund up to ten projects which will sustainably introduce trees, plants, vegetation, and flowers. This is all about encouraging biodiversity in the city centre – and helping to combat pollution. We’re also keen to make Belfast city centre more attractive and liveable by introducing temporary structures allowing vegetation to spread over building façades, hoarding or exterior walls, planting native trees, vegetation, and flowers in vacant, underused, and derelict city centre sites.”

The Active Travel scheme will provide 100% capital support up to a maximum of £30K per secure parking site and must be delivered by February 2024.

Active Travel

The development of a network of secure cycle parking locations is supported by the Department for Infrastructure, which recognises the importance of walking and cycling provision within the city, as outlined in the recent publication: ‘Making Belfast an Active City – Belfast Cycling Network 2021’

The scheme will provide 100% capital support up to a maximum of £30K per site and must be delivered by February 2024.

They will consider Expressions of Interest from those seeking to provision through use of, but not limited to, carparks, multi-storey carparks and repurposing of vacant shop units.

Successful applicants will be responsible for the operation of the secure cycle parking provision, including, but not limited to:

• operation of service including provision of access and management of users
• adequate security and monitoring
• financial management
• customer service and support
• regular maintenance and cleansing

Applicants will be required to support their funding request with a comprehensive operating model, outlining how they intend to deliver and maintain, safe and secure cycle parking provision on their site.

Grey to Green

They invite project proposals for the city centre that will introduce trees, plants, vegetation and flowers and encourage biodiversity.

The fund will make Belfast city centre more attractive with structures allowing vegetation to spread over building facades or exterior walls, or introducing trees, plants, vegetation and flowers to vacant and derelict city centre sites.

The fund objectives include:

• introducing sustainable vegetation to city centre vacant sites, hoarding or underutilised space
• exploring the potential to use structures to grow vegetation vertically on prominent city centre buildings
• introducing native species to the city centre
• introducing wildlife using bug hotels

Projects must be completed by February 2024.

If a project is awarded a grant, the applicant will be responsible for regular maintenance of the greening infrastructure and ongoing capital costs after the project is complete.

Eligible organisations

We invite proposals from Belfast-based small to medium sized enterprises, social enterprises, charities, community groups and schools for projects which will make the city centre greener.

This includes using vacant or derelict sites temporarily, introducing vertical planting on building walls and structures and other large scale ideas to plant vegetation and encourage biodiversity in the city centre.

Criteria for Grey to Green projects

They need applicants to provide details on where projects will be located, the benefits the proposed project will achieve and how the project will align with these criteria:

• City centre location: greening projects should be located within the city centre and the applicant must have written permission from the landowner to use the proposed site.
• Help combat pollution: applicants should outline how their greening project would help combat pollution, such as using plants like ivy.
• Sustainable: greening should be done in a sustainable manner, with a view to how the project will be maintained in the future.
• Pollinators and native species: applicants should consider how pollinators and native species can be introduced to their projects.
• Introduction of wildlife: the integration of insect and bug hotels in projects is encouraged.
• Visible to the public: projects must be visible to the public. If a proposal includes a rooftop garden, this space must be accessible to the public.

Depending on the value of proposals, they anticipate the fund will support the development of greening in up to 10 city centre locations. We will award grants to projects that most closely align to the scheme’s criteria and objectives.