£140m Belfast regeneration gets green light
Belfast City Council has agreed plans for a £140m commercial and mixed-use regeneration of a former landfill site.
Included in the plans is a £93m visitor attraction, made up of four distinct zones or ‘hubs’ – a welcome hub, a leisure and sports innovation hub, an adventure hub and a theme park hub – which they hope will be completed by 2026.
They estimate that the development will create 200 construction jobs and sustain up to 1,400 jobs on the visitor attraction when operational.
Members also approved the £27m development of a data centre to support the digital economy and a £20m anaerobic digestion facility to generate and export electricity from organic waste.
Inspired by the Cave Hill area’s renowned association with the novel, Gulliver’s Travels, Belfast City Council has named the site Giant’s Park.
Giant’s Park is already home to a £20m state of the art film studio complex, developed by Belfast Harbour.
Alderman Jim Rodgers, Chair of Belfast City Council’s Strategic Policy and Resources Committee said: ‘I’m very much looking forward to seeing this area of the city really coming to life through our regeneration plans. Not only does Giant’s Park offer businesses excellent connectivity through our airports and motorways, there’s the obvious additional benefit of being able to recruit from Belfast’s strong skills and talent base.
‘We’ve made a firm commitment to stimulating job creation in the Belfast Agenda, and it’s the central objective of the Belfast Region City Deal proposition that we’re currently working on with our partners. By developing this vast site, we stand to gain jobs, visitors, and vital rates income which we can reinvest in Belfast.’
The Giant’s Park infrastructure project was part-funded by Invest Northern Ireland (£1.6m) and the European Regional Development Fund (£2.2m), under the European Sustainable Competitiveness Programme for Northern Ireland, along with investment from Belfast City Council.
For more information on Giant’s Park, click here.
