Community garden and urban green project to be scrapped for GAA pitch in 13 months 'might be relocated'
A community garden and an EU-funded city environmentalism project could be pushed to a new location, making way for an astroturf GAA pitch that was feared to destroy them altogether.
That’s according to Belfast Council officials, who today told a meeting that talks on relocating the projects have happened since the GAA pitch was approved earlier this month, after being discussed behind closed doors.
While an SDLP member said politicians have been told “it might be possible” to have GAA grounds and the green projects on Lower Botanic Gardens in south Belfast simultaneously, officials replied there’s “still some distance to go” on that idea.
And Sinn Fein took pains to reinforce the astroturf pitch will be built come what may, councillor Ciaran Beattie stating: “The decision’s already made.”
The community garden and the research project pioneering “nature-based solutions” to climate change have proved popular with neighbouring locals, many of whom have put in hard graft in the garden, as well as wider residents and visitors taking a stroll around what was a little-used empty patch.
The EU-funded environmentalism project, called Upsurge, has the council partnering with Queen’s University. It’s one of five Upsurge schemes around Europe, experimenting with ways to grow crops and wildflowers in built-up parts of cities that lack large amounts of green space.
According to documents presented to this afternoon’s meeting, both of them will lose the right to be there within 13 months.
Details in council reports show that Queens University’s licence to operate on the Stranmillis Embankment grounds began three years ago, while the body behind the community garden, Friends of the Field, saw their official licence begin in September 2025.
The garden’s licence expires at the end of this summer; the Upsurge licence runs out at the end of September, becoming a monthly renewable contract lasting a maximum of six months. That means neither will have permission to be there after the end of March 2027.
Said a council official this afternoon: “We have committed to looking at the future of this project and potentially it could be relocated somewhere else while pitch development comes forward.”