Brum vs Belfast #4: Quarters and Plans
Written by Nicky Getgood on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 ( Start discussion )
Tags: belfast exposed, big city plan, brumvsbelfast, cathedral quarter, colin cobbs, community arts forum, Created in Birmingham, derrick booker, Eastside Projects, Friction Arts, golden thread gallery, Ikon Eastside, ps2, The Belfast Metropolitan Area Plan 2015, titanic boat tour, titanic quarter
Belfast’s Quarters from Nicky Getgood on Vimeo.
I’m answering two questions put to me here:
- The Aardvark wanted to know about ‘Quarters. Does Belfast have a ???? Quarter like Brum has an Irish Quarter. Which bits of Belfast are the least “Belfasty”?’
- And Citizensheep wanted to know ‘Does Belfast have a Big City Plan?’
The answer to both questions is YES. Belfast does have quarters. Seven of them because, “We’re Irish and we can’t count.” (Titanic Boat Tour Captain Derrick Booker’s words, not mine). The one in line for the biggest overhaul is the Titanic Quarter, which Derrick and Colin Cobbs tell us all about. It kind of reminds me of Eastside – not too much there at the moment but big talk of many ‘mixed-use developments’ (are there any other kind these days?).
There’s also others such as Queens Quarter, Laganside, North Quarter and Cathedral Quarter in the mix. Me and Karen got an arts tour of the Cathedral Quarter whilst we were there and the industrial and creative mix reminded me a hell of a lot of Digbeth, right down to its galleries. Belfast Exposed had the look and feel of Ikon Eastside, the Golden Thread Gallery’s pieces could have been at home in Eastside Projects and the work of PS2 made me think of Friction Arts (I’ve bought an extra copy City Supplements home especially for Sandra Hall).
It’s even got its own creative community website. It’s not quite not quite Created in Birmingham but the Community Arts Forum gave a fantastic collective response to proposed plans to develop the soul out of the area (sound familiar?). The Cathedral Quarter – Let’s Get It Right campaign ‘aimed to push forward the sensitive and successful development of the area’ by voicing the neighbourhood’s concerns and publishing alternative visions. What’s even more impressive is they succeeded:
In October 2004, in a move that was applauded by the Let’s Get it Right campaign, the Department of Social Development announced that Cathedral Quarter would have its own regeneration masterplan. This would push forward development of the area, while protecting its unique built and cultural heritage.
Go on.
In answer to Michael Grimes’ question, Belfast has The Belfast Metropolitan Area Plan 2015 (BMAP), which is ‘a development plan being prepared under the provisions of Part III of the Planning (Northern Ireland) Order 1991 by the Planning Service, an Agency within the Department of the Environment (DOE)’. I’d tell you more, but attempting to download one of the huge PDF’s the plan is made up of almost killed my computer.
So there we have it – both cities have more than four quarters christened with pet names by city planners and a city plan seemingly written for developers rather than residents, with a website that Could Do Better. It’s just too close to call, I declare this #brumvsbelfast round a draw.
