The National Trust is to be called before councillors to “answer questions” over its decision to pull out of the controversial Mournes Gateway project.
Newry, Mourne and Down District Council (NMDDC) chairperson, Pete Byrne (SDLP) informed elected members of the approach at the full council meeting on Tuesday (May 6).
Last week, the National Trust refused to grant the council a lease at Thomas’s Quarry in order to facilitate the £44m plans for a gondola ride between two tourist centres in Newcastle.
Cllr Byrne said: “The news that broke last week on the gondola project, that the National Trust had pulled out…we held an emergency Mourne Gateway Programme Board meeting last Friday (May 2). There was a robust and long discussion on where that leaves us as a council.
“We had a number of proposals, one of those was that we call the National Trust to be in front of the full council to answer questions on the decision to pull out.
“But, also to ask officers to go and engage with the Belfast Region City Deal (BRCD) to find out what the next steps are for us going forward, so that we are informed on what we can and can’t do and we can inform obviously to the public…in terms of trying to keep that money in NMDDC area.
“How tough that will be, we don’t know until we have another meeting next week, though there is due to be another three emergency meetings of the programme board to be planned this week.”
The Mourne Mountain project was supported by £30m through the BRCD with the rest from NMDDC including any other costs.
When completed the tourist attraction was predicted to gain over 365,000 visitors a year.
The National Trust had cited environmental concerns for the protected lands, which it felt had not been alleviated, saying: “The National Trust believes that the proposed gondola project and visitor centre would risk placing additional pressures on already degraded upland habitats.
“With the known existing recreational and other pressures on the protected areas, as a conservation charity we cannot support a project of this scale that would be inviting substantial visitor numbers into fragile and threatened areas of the Mournes landscape and therefore we will not be considering a lease at Thomas’s Quarry.”
NMDDC chamber has now heard that a flurry of emergency meetings are to be planned to retain the £30m funding from the BRCD, potentially for an “alternative” project with elected members to pitch their ideas.
The chairperson added: “It has been a very disappointing decision for people who have been working on the project. I just want to make it clear from myself and the chair, that the failure or pulling out of that project, doesn’t fall at the feet of the council officers who were carrying through the requests through the Memorandum of Understanding.
“This was signed by the National Trust and the council and that is exactly what we were working on the programme board to the letter. It asked for us to carry out an independent environmental assessment and that is what this council was doing, an EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) at the request of the National Trust. And following the report of the EIA, that we would move to lease discussions, that was the position and unfortunately the National Trust has pulled out before that EIA is in front of us.
“That’s the facts of the situation. We are trying our best to get more from the BRCD panel. It is not in our hands on what to do with that funding, but in the hands of the BRCD panel.
“We will do everything we can to retain that money. I would ask that anyone who has ideas or alternatives for the project to contact senior management.”
During the council meeting, Mournes Alliance rep, Jill Truesdale brought forward a motion seeking a full review of the gondola project.
The matter was sent to the Mourne Gateway Programme Board for discussion before it will be debated at the council’s strategy, policy and resources committee and sent to full council to be ratified.
