Hospitality and retail trade chiefs call for plans to boost Belfast city centre

At a meeting at Belfast City Hall, both representatives welcomed the actions already under way by Council and a commitment from the Lord Mayor Cllr Tina Black to join them on a walkabout in the city centre every few weeks to chart progress.

The engagement comes in response to recent concerns regarding cleanliness, dereliction, anti-social behaviour and drug and alcohol addiction related issues reported widely in the media and on social media platforms.

In a joint statement, Colin Neill, CEO, Hospitality Ulster and Glyn Roberts, CEO, Retail NI, said: “A clean, safe environment is paramount to ensuring that customers and shoppers continue to spend time in and enjoy the city centre. We know that keeping a city clean and tidy is an intensive and constant process that takes resource and commitment. This is not a time to be negative about the situation we are currently in, but about finding solutions about how we move forward. We now need to have focus and energy to resolve the issues - we do not underestimate the size of the challenge. We welcome the fact that the Council is in the process of establishing a multi-agency and departmental Taskforce to tackle these problems.

“This is an important part of the year when we welcome hundreds of thousands of tourists, shoppers and local customers into Belfast City Centre on a daily and weekly basis. It is no more apparent when the weather is good that we need to do all that we can to support the Council in making Belfast City Centre a vibrant and attractive place to socialise and shop in.”