'Everyone knows Castlereagh isn't part of Lisburn': Unionism in Belfast diluted by redrawn council boundaries, says TUV
Unionism is Belfast has been “diluted” since council boundaries were reworked 10 years ago, the TUV says.
In 2015, Northern Ireland moved from having 26 councils to 11; as part of that, Belfast’s boundaries were redrawn, but in a way city TUV councillor Ron McDowell argues led to a major loss of power and influence for unionism in the province’s capital.
Before the shift, Belfast was neighboured to the south-west by the Lisburn district and the south-east by Castlereagh, both of which contained areas that could be regarded as suburbs of Belfast – next to city limits and largely populated by families who work in the capital.
When the boundaries were redrawn, heavily nationalist suburbs to the south-west of Belfast such as Dunmurry were moved from Lisburn into city limits, but historically unionist areas to the south-east such as Dundonald and Carryduff stayed where they were.
Lisburn and Castlereagh then merged, a move that at the time was felt likely to bolster unionist votes on a newly created ‘supercouncil’ with boundary that looks like a catcher’s mitt encircling the lower half of Belfast.
Over time, argues Mr McDowell, the impact of joining Dundonald and Carryduff to Lisburn instead of including them in an expanded Belfast has been to unbalance the city’s council – and he suggests that other suburban areas just past Belfast’s northern boundary could also have been a natural fit if they’d been included.
“Everyone outside Belfast knows Castlereagh isn’t part of Lisburn,” he told the News Letter. “Those decisions diluted unionist strength in the capital and we are living with the consequences today.
“[The boundary re-draw was] a carve-up that dragged Castlereagh out of Belfast, and handed other naturally unionist areas to Antrim and Newtownabbey.”
The TUV man was speaking after a recent series of high-profile defeats for unionists on the city council, ranging from September’s decision to blast Irish language signs on council-owned buildings right across Belfast, even in areas where it’s barely understood and largely rejected, to Monday’s vote that saw the Palestine flag flying from city hall.