Ye Couldn't Make it Up

Pauline Mellon with a piece from her blog The Diary of a Derry Mother. It appeared there on 14 September 2014.

Derry Journal front page

A statement from Independent Councillor Dee Quigley published in the Derry Journal on Tuesday 9thSeptember has got me thinking!
In his statement Cllr Quigley challenged the MLA's at Stormont to explain why Galliagh is lacking in support services and facilities. I would echo Cllr Quigley's sentiments.

Derry has the highest rate of unemployment in the North of Ireland with every third child said to be living below the poverty line, Galliagh in the Greater Shantallow area of the city has a history of high unemployment and deprivation levels.

2012 figures published by Derry City Council state that the wards of Shantallow east and west have 53% & 58% of children living in poverty, figures published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in 2012 provide a more comprehensive picture with pensioner poverty at 21% and an increase in the numbers of people who are in work who are considered as living in poverty.

Considering these startling figures we must question the continued failings of the political institutions and in particular local MLA's who merely utter lip-service in these situations and who offer nothing of substance.

It must be said there are some facilities in the Galliagh area including a number of sports facilities. Galliagh compared to other areas has more facilities, however the problem is some of these facilities come at a cost to local children with paying groups given preference, others have limited opening hours. It must be acknowledged that some facilities were introduced to area in the name of the local youth to help reduce social exclusion, deprivation and disadvantage. Despite this, local children who can't afford to pay to use these facilities remain disadvantaged and excluded.

What's galling is these facilities are often unused and despite this the gates remain closed to local children, even the once open grass pitch beside the 3G artificial pitch is now fenced off. To ensure local facilities are being used to their full potential and that all local children can avail of these facilities there needs to be open discussion with the wider community and the groups responsible for the day to day running of these facilities. This would fit firmly with the Department for Social Development People and Place Urban Renewal strategy in that the approach must be a bottom up community led one, with the community being empowered to be central to any process.

I also agree with Cllr Quigley's sentiments regarding facilities for the elderly which seem to be non existent. There is nowhere for older members of the community to sit and have a cup of tea and chat or as provided by community facilities in other areas of the city a hot meal. However the problem in the Galliagh area is not the lack of facilities it is the under utilisation and state of repair of these facilities. A 2010 consultation carried out in the Galliagh area by Belfast Consultants FGS McClure Watters to examine the feasibility of a neighbourhood centre supported this, the report concluded that there were adequate facilities in the area to deliver the proposed services but that they were not being used to their full potential (and their level of disrepair).

The Conclusion of the FGS McClure Watters Report

From unfortunate past experience in dealing with community quangos I learned of how some groups are completely out of touch with the needs of the community. This is because they operate on a closed shop basis yet claim to act in the best interests and name of the wider community. I have often argued that these community groups need to be more accountable to the community in terms of their membership, their purpose and the funding they are accessing in the name of the community.

A simple way of doing this would be to publish on their website a list of current board members, minutes of meetings and ongoing activities, or in the case of the Caw & Nelson Drive Action Group which is based in the waterside area of the city, they ensure a regular in house news letter is distributed to every home in the area they represent.

In a recent Facebook statement from Independent Councillor Gary Donnelly he raised concerns over poor attendance at a meeting in the Bogside area of Derry organised by the Dove House Community Trust. Councillor Donnelly said:

I attended a meeting in the Bog tonight organised by Dove House about issues affecting the area, you could count the number of residents on one hand who attended. Any thoughts on why this meeting was by and large ignored by locals. Would like to hear from people from the area.

Some online responses to Councillor Donnelly's question indicated that a lot of residents were unaware of the meeting, which is certainly plausible. A quick glance on the Dove House Trust Website provided no mention of the meeting which would seem to confirm why the wider community knew nothing about the meeting although the website does thank their funders and give an RSS feed of the Radio Foyle news feed...in other words, information of little no use to the community.

From personal experience I have found that community consultation generally consists of the findings from predetermined attendees and the community notified as an afterthought . In the case of one consultation carried out in the Galliagh/ Greater Shantallow / Outer North area of the city in 2008 as part of a ten year youth strategy the findings were based on the views of less then a half of one percent of those eligible to participate in the catchment area.

The 43 person consultation.

This meant of a possible 11,731 people a total of 43 young people were surveyed with only one survey carried out in the Galliagh area. Now even a layperson like myself can see that to base your conclusion on a sample so small is not representative of the people but an exercise in statistical manipulation, and this was somehow found to be an acceptable method of gauging the need for services.

Maybe it would be an idea for those engaging in community consultation to actually ask the community. In the DSD 'People and Place' working paper it raises concerns that many believe local people should be involved in defining what is considered as deprivation and not just the exclusive use of the Noble indicators, as this could result in severe problems in an area not being identified.

Ask most people from Derry if they think the Culmore area of the city could be considered a deprived area, and you'll probably be told 'no' in response, but I would challenge anyone to tell me what facilities exist in the Culmore area for the young people who live there? What facilities exist for the older people in the Culmore area?

What facilities exist in Strathfoyle or Cosquin? There seems a deficit in addressing these issues, well except in the run up to election time, then you're guaranteed the sun, the moon and the stars.

In Councillor Quigley's article he outlines the need for increased services to address the suicide rate, the growing drugs crisis and the need for more training and employment opportunities. On July 23rd 2014 Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, launched the £3.3m Community Work Programme (CWP) in the Northside Centre in the Galliagh/ Shantallow area of Derry. The programme is said to be aimed at long-term unemployed people aged between 18 and 24 years is to provide the opportunity to gain new skills and employment.

This could be considered as a positive development until you realise that at the same time the Social Investment Fund gave £4.5 million to build more sport pitches, that's £1.2 million pounds more for football pitches than in training and employment.

This disparity begs the question, what genius decided to invest more money in new sports pitches than in employment opportunities in a city with the highest unemployment rate in the North? Also don't forget there is an identified link between the unemployment rate and the suicide rate, yet those who make decisions about the allocation of funds have not seemed to have grasped this basic concept.

One of the major problem when facilities and services are needed is the money to resource them, yet Galliagh could be considered to be in a very fortunate position. Following the sale of the Galliagh Co-op there was a substantial sum of money placed in trust for the refurbishment of St Joseph's Parish Centre, which is situated in the heart of the Galliagh community.

In 2009 the issue of this money was raised at a meeting with community representatives,when members of the community asked why the refurbishment of the parish centre was not being considered as an alternative to a proposed new building in a different part of the area they were told that the money had been used by the Church, however a letter from the then parish priest stated that the money was there and held in trust by the parish.

Letter from Msgr Canny stating money held in trust

The question now should be is this money still available and if so can further funding be sourced to provide the community with a facility that will meet its needs.

With that in mind I would remind Galliagh and Outer-North residents of how the local Northside Centre was built with public money as a neighbourhood centre for the area and then later sold privately in 2007 without consultation with local residents.

When the news of the sale was raised Joseph McLaughlin ( the then Chief Executive of the Northside Development Trust) and brother of Sinn Fein MLA Mitchel McLaughlin informed to the local press that they had development plans for a “21st Century” nursing home and a state-of-the-art playing facilities in vacant land adjacent to Bradley’s Pass, close to Northside Village Centre.

We’re very excited about it and already have full planning permission agreed. Now it’s a question of negotiating the transfer of the site to the Trust Partnership. The two projects, which will create 60 jobs, are a state-of-the-art 3rd Generation Astro Turf (3G)Pitch at the wasteland from the roundabout at Madam’s Bank Road to Bradley’s Pass, and negotiations are ongoing with the Sports Council on this.

Despite these amazing plans and great intentions the land referred to above was sold to Apex Housing Association in 2013. It would also seem that the Derry Journal links to all articles about the sale of the Northside Centre are currently inactive, however for copies of the articles and more click here.

I would call on Councillor Quigley to publicly ask the Northside Development trust for a complete breakdown of what they have done with not only the money from the sale of the centre, but the sale of the land to Apex.

After all the money held in trust by the church coupled with money from Northside would go a long way towards developing and sustaining the services that we all know are more needed than another pay as you play football pitch.