For some years East Belfast Partnership has lobbied for more strategic approach to development in this part of the city.

With a population of around 80,000 residents East Belfast has developed in a random fashion over the last twenty years with little regard for its position beside the key gateway sites of Belfast Harbour and the City Airport. Its location adjacent to the emerging Titanic Quarter will have significant impact on the resident communities requiring a holistic approach to be taken if issues such as poor health, joblessness, employability, educational under achievement, crime and disorder and an overall lack of civic pride in some areas are to be tackled and reversed. There is also an identified need to reconnect East Belfast, physically and psychologically, to Belfast city centre.

While there continues to be substantial public and private investment it is a matter of concern that east Belfast still includes four of the most disadvantaged Council wards in Northern Ireland and a number of pockets of significant deprivation.

The need for a strategic focus was recognised by the ‘Renewing Communities’ Initiative – the Government’s response to the Report of the Taskforce on Protestant Working Class Communities, announced in 2006.   In the Renewing Communities Action Plan Measure 2.4 – Strategic Regeneration Framework for Belfast – ‘each Belfast Area Partnership will be commissioned to provide a Strategic Regeneration Framework for their area which will set a strategic context for important initiatives.’

East Belfast Partnership subsequently developed a brief and appointed consultants to prepare a Strategic Regeneration Framework (SRF) for its area of responsibility. The Paul Hogarth Company, providing Regeneration Consultancy, Urban Design and Landscape Architecture services, led a Team appointed in July 2007 to deliver the SRF. Alongside them, Dr Mike Morrissey and Dr Julie Harrison provided specialist regeneration focused socio-economic input.

The following pages provide an illustration of the content of the completed SRF.

Please select below to download a copy of the full SRF document and its appendices:

• Strategic Regeneration Framework (PDF, 100MB)
• Strategic Regeneration Framework Appendices (PDF, 84MB)