Kilcooley Community Forum: New Decade for Development

FORUM

24 June, 2010

Justice Minister calls into Kilcooley

Minister for Justice Mr David Ford & Mark Gordon at Kilcooley Community Forum

Meeting with community representatives from Kilcooley Community Forum the Minister Mr Ford said, “I am very pleased to be here today as I have heard a lot about the work being done in Kilcooley and I want to listen to what you have to say.”

During his one and a half hour meeting he heard concerns about the lack of funding spent in Kilcooley by the North Down Community Safety Partnership and worry about any potential merger with CSP’s and DPP’s and how reflective they would be as far as communities were concerned.

On community based restorative justice, Jim Rea (Bangor Alternatives) said, “Minister we look at the budget given to the Youth Justice Agency and compare that to the funds allocated to CBRJ, there is just no comparison yet we jump every hoop and do everything asked of us and although the evidence shows CBRJ sites do a very good job, yet no one is prepared to core fund the work we do. The Department for Social Development contributes to the work in Bangor but this limits us to Kilcooley clients only while the Northern Ireland Housing Executive offers support via the MACS programme. What will you do to change how CBRJ is funded across Northern Ireland but particularly in Bangor?” The Minister responded that the “Youth Justice Agency has a regional remit and deals with many different aspects of youth and crime,” however he was conscious of the work of CBRJ and would be looking at all avenues to find the most effective way of delivering cost effective services at a local level.

When pressed about the need to look at how CBRJ is currently being funded the Minister again gave the commitment that he would be speaking with his advisors about the best way forward on these matters.

Mark Gordon Community Development Manager asked the Minister what he intended to do about the perception within loyalist communities that the Historical Enquiry Team were only investigating cases against loyalists and considering the Chief Constable was about to approach him for further money to extend their work, should there not be some measures put in place to ensure their work is impartial. The Minister responded, “The HET do not publicise the work they do and it is only a perception that they only investigate loyalist past crimes.”

Alison Blayney Director Kilcooley Women’s Centre asked the Minister if within his role in the Stormont Executive he could help change the ‘Belfast biased’ funding allocation as there were many areas province-wide that suffered from the legacy of the conflict and were deprived communities. The Minister said funding should be allocated according to identified need and he was aware of the strong feelings from other communities that so much funding seemed to be distributed to areas of need in Belfast.

Jamie Bryson Youth Cohesion Project told the Minister of the work he was doing with various groups of young men within Kilcooley and from other communities, tackling issues such as racism, sectarianism and bigotry. The Minister was impressed at what he heard.

Jim Mills from Kilcooley Community Action Group also impressed upon the Minister the need for funding to work on youth projects that clearly helped to reduce crime. He told of the work of KCAG and the cross community projects with Twinbrook young people.

Among many other issues raised by those attending who included Eileen Bell former Speaker at Stormont were:

Kilcooley KEEPSAFE Project and how the project could be rolled out into other communities.

Bangor’s STREETSAFE initiative and the fears around the lack of public consultation about this project going into local communities.

Public Protection Arrangements around sentencing and how to protect against violent / sex offenders.

The visit ended with the Minister thanking everyone for their input. On leaving he called into Kilcooley Tenant Support Project and spoke with the Manager Joanie Brown about the services KTSP provides.

Mark Goodfellow Acting Head of the Community Safety Unit (Department of Justice) who attended with the Minister gave assurances he would get back to the Kilcooley Community Forum in response to some of the finer details that had been discussed.

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