Belfast City Council tries to hide cost estimate for its planned transgender / gay centre in public listed building

The News Letter can nonetheless reveal the range of figures involved though.

The story has its genesis in August 2023, when a feasibility study was produced setting out the rationale for such a hub.

It had been commissioned by the council and a group of activist organisations which want to see it happen: Cara Friend, HERe NI, The Rainbow Project and Transgender NI.

The News Letter later sought a copy of that feasibility study and, after several months of trying, the council handed it over.

But when it arrived, parts had been redacted.

Whilst the council had left in all the bits about why a hub would be a good idea, it attempted to blank out the costs involved on the grounds that it "would prejudice the commercial interests of the council".

This didn't work however, and the text could still be read underneath the redactions.

What it revealed is that, at the time of the study, the estimated "capital cost" of the project (that is, the amount to build/refurbish/equip the hub) "could range from £0.5m to £10m".

This would then be followed by a possible subsidy of £70,000 every year for the hub thereafter, the study stated.

The new hub is to be in 2 Royal Avenue – an ornate listed building which is owned by the council, and which used to house a Tesco supermarket.

The council says it is currently procuring a design team for the LGBTQIA+ hub, adding: “This process is expected to be concluded in autumn this year and cost development will be part of the design team’s remit.”

However, it has also indicated that the final figure will not be at the upper end of that £0.5m to £10m range, because only the first floor is likely to be used for the hub as opposed to the entire building (which was considered as a possibility at the time the study was done).

The council told the News Letter that "all costs and revenue requirements contained in this report are for illustrative purposes only, and to encourage further discussion", and that the study had "looked at a range of options for the building overall, including extensive works throughout".

It added: "The hub project is purely focused on the first floor of the building only, and it would not require the same costs as a full refurbishment of this heritage listed building…

“The feasibility study acknowledges that the main requirements of any future LGBTQIA+ Hub could be accommodated within the first floor at 2 Royal Avenue.

“In August 2023, elected members agreed that a proposal for a LGBTQIA+ Hub, on the first floor, should be taken forward as part of a wider council application for Peace Plus funding. This application was subsequently submitted in December 2023.

“In February 2024, elected members further agreed to undertake an expressions of interest process for the building’s ground floor, towards a longer-term sustainable use of this space to reflect the changing nature of Belfast city centre and the need to encourage a range of cultural, community, social, retail, hospitality and leisure uses.”

It added that “options will be brought before elected members for their consideration and agreement on next steps”.

As to whether councillors could still opt to use the whole building, not just the first floor (thus pushing up the cost), the council said: "Members can put proposals forward at any time, but Peace Plus funding has been secured for the Hub to be developed on the first floor of 2 Royal Avenue."

This is a reference to the announcement last summer that "an indicative figure of £1m for the proposed LBGTQIA+ Hub" had been secured from the Peace Plus fund, jointly funded by the EU and UK government.

According to the feasibility study, LGBTQIA+ stands for “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning/Queer, Intersex and Asexual, with plus representing other sexual and/or gender identity terms (eg, pansexual) that people may choose to describe themselves".

One of the main things the feasibility study looked at when assessing the need for a new hub was how many gay, bisexual, and transgender/non-binary people there are in NI.

It said that the members of the LGBTQ+ steering group estimate the number to be "between 5 and 10% of the population", saying that the figures from the census are an "under-estimate" (the 2021 census put the figure at 2.1%, while an Office for National Statistics estimate in 2020 put the number at about 1.8%).

The study concludes that Belfast's LGBTQ+ population is "probably at the lower-mid point of a 4.5% to 9% range", rising to up to 28% among those aged 16-to-25.