Most of the land available for industry in Craigavon remains unused to this day, and none more so than in Mandeville, with 95 acres out of 97.9 still undeveloped.
The irony, as Cllr Julie Flaherty pointed out at a recent economic meeting, is that many farmers were uprooted from that very land many decades ago, including her own family (pictured).
The UUP representative for Portadown stated: “It’s very difficult to see those figures when you come from a family originally from Craigavon who were farmers, and whose ground was vested for this very purpose, and families were uprooted and moved without half a thought. This is a scandal.”
Referring to a recommendation to invite a top team from Invest NI to a subsequent ABC meeting, Cllr Flaherty said she was very much in favour of that happening: “Get them in because we do know that there’s businesses being turned away, we do know that, we hear it all the time and it’s quite frustrating.
“We’re also talking about setting up different groups for growing business, and then whenever we get to the stage where we’re looking places for them, there’s nowhere. It’s ridiculous, so get them in and let’s have a good chat with them.”
Cllr Flaherty subsequently revealed her family is one of many who were displaced in the early 1970s to allow for the development of Craigavon as a new urban centre.
She recalled: “My late grandfather, Wesley Hunniford, had our home place and orchards vested in 1973 in Bluestone. The plans at that time were for housing and a roundabout – I believe at Bluestone corner.
“The house and land were offered back at a hugely inflated price many years later, but my grandfather had already relocated to another farm and our lives all had moved along. This same thing happened to many farmers and landowners.
“My grandfather initially moved closer to Portadown but really didn’t settle, and he eventually built our houses out at Derrylettiff, where I grew up.
“There are hundreds of similar stories. It was really quite terrible what was done to these farmers and landowners at the time.
“We were a very small holding at the time. Others lost so much more. It was very disruptive for so many families and livelihoods at the time.”
Meanwhile, a Council proposal to invite a delegation from Invest NI, to discuss a way forward for land zoned for industrial use which has yet to be developed, was viewed as a step forward at a recent ABC Economic Development & Regeneration Committee.
As of December 31, 2021, according to an agenda item circulated to committee members, the total Invest NI land holding was 541 acres of undeveloped land in Northern Ireland.
The highest proportion of this undeveloped land lies in Armagh City Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council area, with 135 acres or 24 per cent of Invest NI’s land bank lying undeveloped.
Director of Development, Community & Wellbeing, Paul Tamati stated at the meeting: “Invest NI are going through a bit of a reset at the moment with the new Sub Regional Strategy, a new chief executive appointed, and looking at new structures, etc.
“Some of those consultations on that Regional Strategy I attended, and they did acknowledge that maybe performance around the likes of land hasn’t been what it needed to be over the last number of years.
“Not that I’m defending Invest NI, and I do welcome the proposal around inviting them in.
“The new Sub Regional strategy is also about re-looking at this and seeing how they can maybe move to encourage investment, rather than prohibiting it going forward.
“It doesn’t seem to be matter which minister’s been at the table here. We haven’t seen progress and certainly us as officers want to help.
“I do think them coming and presenting to members is a great proposal, and we’ll certainly write out to them and facilitate that.”
Cllr Thomas O’Hanlon (SDLP, Armagh DEA), said he remained sceptical regarding Invest NI’s ability to look beyond the greater Belfast area when it comes to promoting economic development: “I appreciate the director’s comments about the restructuring of Invest NI, but to be honest it’s not a change in structure that Invest NI needs, it’s a change of mindset.
“Anything beyond the outer ring of Belfast, they’re not interested in it, and their foreign direct investment figures show that in terms of the number of visits that they bring to the different regions.
“And to be honest, there’s a view out there they’re fast becoming not fit for purpose.
“And unless they send their chief executive and top team down here, we need to be strong enough to send them away and say ‘sorry folks, we’re not interested in talking to you until you send us your top team’.
“Ultimately, the power is also in council’s hands, because it is council who zone lands, and we’re going through a development area plan process at the minute.
“So there’s a lot of that land that is sitting on Invest NI’s books that is valuable, but if it’s no longer valued or zoned as development lands, it’s no longer valuable to them, so they really need to buck their ideas up and get working with council.”
Cllr Peter Lavery (Alliance, Lurgan DEA) described the situation as a “scandal”.
He stated: “Invest NI are meant to be facilitating economic growth, and you’ve land there that’s been sitting for 40 or 50 years.
“I mean, that’s an absolute scandal that Invest NI is turning down economic growth for our residents and our ratepayers.
“They’ve got their heads stuck in Belfast and elsewhere. So I would welcome if we could come in and give them a proper grilling, because there’s people that could be employed in those industries locally that may be having to commute elsewhere.
“We’ve got strong economic growth already, but it seems to be Invest NI are acting as a blockage to that.
“I think it’s outrageous for Invest NI. They need to change their red lines to allow that economic growth to take place, especially if there is interest, or they need to basically move away from that land and let the private sector or whoever facilitate that local industry, because it’s just unacceptable that they are turning people away, hurting our local economy and not being held to account for it.
“So I think it’s going to be very difficult for the chief executive or whoever at Invest NI, because that approach is just not acceptable, and we will certainly not be accepting that going forward.”
