Aontú Newry representative Roisin Mulgrew has welcomed planning approval for Newry City Park, but said years of delays and repeated promises have deeply damaged public confidence.
Ms Mulgrew said:
“Planning approval for Newry City Park is welcome. Newry needs and deserves a first-class public park, and the people who have campaigned for it over many years deserve enormous credit for keeping this project on the agenda.
But nobody in the Council should be surprised that this latest announcement has been met with as much scepticism as celebration.
People remember the promises. They remember the announcements. They remember being told funding was secured. And now, years later, we are celebrating the fact that the project has finally received planning permission?
The questions people are asking are very simple: when will the park actually be built? And how can we trust what you say when you’ve made false promises before?
That scepticism is not unique to Newry. Across the North we have developed a political culture where announcing something is treated by our politicians as if it was the same as delivering it.
People have watched the saga of Casement Park drag on for more than a decade. They have watched the A5 repeatedly promised by MLAs as vital infrastructure, yet those very same MLAs voted for the climate change legislation that has blocked it in the courts.
And people in Derry have spent years waiting for the full expansion of Magee, listening to Sinn Féin and the SDLP proudly proclaim that they have campaigned for university status for 40 years. 40 years campaigning and no delivery is a sign of failure, not commitment.
These are different projects but there is a common lesson running through them: a promise is not delivery, an announcement is not delivery, a lovely computer generated image is not delivery and planning permission is not delivery.
The Council has now published new images of the proposed City Park and those images look impressive – everyone wants to see that vision become reality. But we don’t need more pictures – we need action.
The Council is now publicly talking about the park being completed in 2028. That is important, because we finally have a date against which progress can be measured.
So tell the people of Newry how we get from planning permission in 2026 to a completed park in 2028. When will the construction contract go to tender? When will a contractor be appointed? When will work physically begin on site? What are the major construction milestones, and in what month of 2028 is the park expected to open?
There also needs to be transparency around the money. What has been committed and spent to date? Is the original funding package still sufficient? And if costs have risen during these years of delay, what will that mean for ratepayers?
Questions are also being raised about antisocial behaviour, security, maintenance, litter, dog fouling and wildlife. The Council needs to demonstrate not only how it will build the park, but how this public space will be maintained and protected.
Public reaction tells its own story. People are saying they will ‘believe it when they see it’ and asking why a project they thought was settled years ago is only now reaching this stage.
The way to answer that scepticism isn’t with another computer-generated image or another photo opportunity with councillors and MLAs ‘welcoming’ an announcement. It’s with diggers on the ground and a published delivery programme that the public can hold councillors accountable to.
Planning permission must now mark the end of the excuses and the beginning of delivery. Start the work and deliver it.
In 2028, the people of Newry should be walking through the park – not looking at another set of pictures of what it might someday become.”
ENDS