Putting up dual-language Irish / English street signs is 'marking territory' says DUP councillor after scheme to go ahead at behest of 29% of street's residents

Bradley Ferguson made the comments after it was decided at a meeting of the full council to press ahead with the scheme for Knock Eden Park on the basis that 29% of the residents there want it.

He also said he would doubt that Alliance - which, in a u-turn, opted to press ahead with the dual-language scheme for the road - would be similarly happy if the issue at hand was the display of Union flags as opposed to Irish language street signs.

The council used to have a policy which said that one-third of a street's residents had to sign a petition to kick-start the process of getting dual-language road signs installed.

After that, two-thirds of all the residents on that street would have to agree to it - with 'no responses' being treated as 'no' votes.

Last year this policy was changed.

The new one means that a single resident can kick-start the process, and only 15% of residents have to voice their approval before dual-language signs can be put up, with 'no responses' no longer counting towards the tally of 'no' votes.

Knock Eden Park is a long street comprised mainly of semi-detached homes in the Rosetta district in the south-west of the city, not far from Kingspan rugby stadium.

Data from the 2021 census shows that in the area which Knock Eden Park falls into (a zone called Lisnasharragh K1, consisting of 167 homes) some 40% of residents described themselves as Irish, 25% as British, and 18% as Northern Irish, with the rest being a mix of those.

When the road's residents were polled on whether they want dual-language signs, 55 (29%) were in favour, 46 (or 24%) were not, while 11 (roughly 6%) had no preference and another 81 (42%) did not respond.

At the December meeting of the council’s People and Communities Committee, nine councillors from Sinn Fein and the SDLP voted to accept the result and press ahead whilst 10 councillors from the DUP, Alliance, and Greens voted for a second survey.

However at a meeting of the full council this week, this committee's decision was overturned by a vote of 41 councillors (Sinn Fein, Alliance, SDLP, Greens and People Before Profit) to 16 (DUP, UUP and TUV).

The News Letter sought to find out why Alliance had changed its position, but Lisnasharragh councillor Eric Hanvey referred this reporter to the Alliance press office, which had not responded at time of writing.

Councillor Ferguson told the News Letter: "My understanding from residents who have been in touch from Knock Eden is that it's a very mixed street, but there's very good community relations, good respect between neighbours.

"There's just a feeling that this would probably upset the apple cart. There's good friendships and good community relationships and the feeling from some is this will go against that.”

The more appropriate threshold would be 50%, not 15%, he said.

"The party warned against this being such a low threshold,” he told the News Letter.

"There's parts of the city where Irish language is very welcome, and where it is welcome we're happy for the residents of those streets to have Irish language signs erected. There's no issue where that's concerned.

"But on this occasion, where it quite clearly is going to upset community tensions, that's where we begin to have a problem. It's marking territory."

As to whether Alliance would take the same position if the issue was putting up Union flags instead of Irish signs, the DUP man said "I have a feeling they wouldn't be – but that's a matter for them to answer".