Five years of work lost as sports facilities plans are scrapped

Sport NI said budget cuts meant funding would no longer be available for the projects, which include a basketball and volleyball centre at Laurelhill College and a multi-million pound tennis centre in Hillsborough,

It has been estimated that the cost of submitting each application was likely to have been in the region of 100,000.

The Basketball and Volleyball facility at Laurelhill was estimated to cost in the region of 8 million and would have included a 1000 seater stadium.

The tennis facility, which was being privately backed by a hotel developer, would have cost 4 million. The facility, which would have been built on the Millvale Road, would have provided an elite indoor training facility for tennis players from throughout Northern Ireland. Brian Cushnie from Tennis Fundamentals, a tennis coaching company based in Lisburn, was responsible for drawing up and submitting the application for the Hillsborough facility. He said he was "shocked and disappointed" at the decision and questioned whether the schemes were being shelved for the time being or if they were being axed altogether.

Mr Cushnie, who said he had spent some 2000 hours putting together the application, said:

"While everyone is very much aware of the different financial climate we find ourselves in it is shocking to me that the government would invite applications, costing tens of thousands of pounds, mostly from local councils , therefore funded by ratepayers, without setting this funding aside."

Mr Cushnie said it was even more frustrating that the funding would have been in place before the credit crunch if the the original timescales planned when the process started in 2006 had been adhered to.

"Applicants were held to very tight time scales at each stage while the assessors took inordinate amounts of time to review the applications, over seventeen months to assess the stage two applications" he said.

"Originally the facilities were to be built in time for next year's Olympics in London. If the original timelines had been adhered to by the assessors, as they had to be by the applicants, funding would have been drawn down and the facilities built before the recession led to cuts in government spending."

Mr Cushnie went on to say: "Even now however I am disappointed that there is no money available for any of the projects. I am perhaps more upset than most having spent more than 2,000 hours working, at risk, on a sports development plan, marketing plan, outline business case etc. for the proposed Centre of Excellence for Tennis which was to be based at a very suitable site in Hillsborough. Applications are likely to have cost around 100,000 each.

"Our project would have been self sustaining, after the initial funding, providing excellent much needed indoor facilities to allow play throughout the year. While the main focus of my work has been introducing tennis to beginners and making it fun for children to learn, the facility would also have provided for the best players in the country giving them the opportunity to train without having to travel daily to the national tennis centre in Dublin, which is currently the case.

"Our project included private investment from a hotel developer, rather than council funding, which the government has been rightly trying to encourage.

"The tennis facility already had detailed architectural plans along with the necessary planning permission and was to be built at a new golf and hotel resort near Hillsborough. This would have been a significant draw in attracting tourists to the area, tennis being one of the most popular participant sports worldwide with a relatively affluent following.

"The big question is what happens now? Does lack of funding presently available mean that the projects are shelved until a later, more prosperous, time or does it mean that they are binned totally as seems to be the case?

"My concern is that when we eventually come out of recession and funding is once again available there will be another funding programme introduced with calls for applications and that this money too will be spent on consultants, architects, assessors, administration, planning permissions, government officials etc. rather than being spent on the facilities the money is supposed to be providing for tax payers when there are fully developed plans available."

Mr James Martin, the Principal of Laurelhill Community College, which would have housed the new basketball and volleyball facility said he was "disappointed" at the decision but hoped the plans had been deferred rather than scrapped.

"Laurelhill Community College has been working closely with SportNI, Lisburn City Council, NI Basketball and NI Volleyball to secure an elite facility on the Laurelhill Campus serving the College and the wider community," said Mr Martin.

"I pay tribute to Lisburn City Council and the sporting bodies for the immense effort they have put into this bid. This Olympic standard centre would have greatly enhanced the existing, overused outdoor amenities which are ‘a jewel in the crown' for NI sport.

"I am extremely disappointed with the news and question the myopia of the Department," he continued. "It is clearly not in the long term interests of the young people of this City or the Northern Ireland public to abandon such a project.

"I feel that the response by the Department will have an inevitable negative impact upon the development of elite athletes, and reduce the capacity for all athletes, within Northern Ireland.

"For these reasons, I hope that such forward thinking plans are only being deferred and not abandoned," he concluded.

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