FLAX TRUST SHATTERS
The paper provides a brief description of a major INITIATIVE 2002 FOR REGENERATION & COMMUNITY and innovative technology regeneration and CAPACITY BUILDING IN INNER-NORTH BELFAST community capacity development project which the Flax Trust is implementing in inner-city North Belfast in partnership with community and faith-based organisations from the Shankill and The Stutt Consultation Woodvale areas, the University of Ulster and major corporate organisations such as British This paper has been prepared Telecommunications PLC. by Colin Stutt, on behalf of The Flax Trust The paper sets Initiative 2002 in the context of need and division in North Belfast and describes the interlocking technology, community and Need and Opportunity in North Belfast physical regeneration dimensions of the overall The problems of inner-city North Belfast are well project. known, locally, regionally and even on an international basis. The community is divided and disadvantaged and the resulting community tensions contribute to a cycle of further division and disadvantage as a result both of the actual physical damage done to people and places and of the very negative image of North Belfast as a place of fear. North Belfast has undergone a process of ghettoisation. It has become a place apart, a place which those who can, choose to leave, a place which the rest of the City seeks to avoid as far as possible and a contested space between a declining and more elderly Protestant population and a growing and younger Catholic population. Through this process of ghettoisation inner North Belfast has become separated from the resources required for its renewal and regeneration Fr Aidan Troy, Rector Holy Cross Liam Mailey, Belfast Beacon with Tommy Latimor and Dinny Robinson, North Belfast Beacon There are 567 local government Wards in John Hunter, Permanent Secretary, Dept. of Northern Ireland. Five of the 10 most Social Development and Team with Pastor disadvantaged wards from this total of 567 Jack McKee and North Belfast Beacon Team The Northern Ireland Statistics and Wards are in inner-city North Belfast and Research Agency (NISRA) has 8 of the 20 most disadvantaged Wards are published a detailed series of in the area, as shown below. indicators of disadvantge across Northern Ireland. These, so-called 1. Crumlin Rank 1/567 LG Wards ‘Noble Indicators’ dramatically (ie the most deprived in NI) highlight the concentration of 2. St Annes Rank 4/567 This is a summary of a much fuller paper, disadvantage in the local government 3. Woodvale Rank 7/567 it does not go into detail on issues such Wards that make up inner-city North 4. New Lodge Rank 8/567 as how the technology works. Instead it Belfast. 5. Shankill Rank 10/567 concentrates on the social and economic 6. Ardoyne Rank 12/567 impact which the project will have on 7. Waterworks Rank 16/567 the most disadvantaged urban areas in 8. Duncairn Rank 19/567 Northern Ireland. COMMUNICATION BARRIERS
Based on its experience the Flax Trust has already committed well over £600,000 of its own resources to pilot and test Initiative 2002 which aims to address the ghettoisation of North Belfast by creating a unique project at the leading edge of community regeneraion using advanced but proven information technology, physical regeneration and community development approaches to create a ‘digitial advantage’ for inner city North Belfast as a means of reconnecting the area to the wider City and region, and redressing the long term ghettoisation of North Belfast.
To tackle this danger, the Flax Trust has brought Creating Advantage in North Belfast together a group of partners to create a digital advantage in North Belfast and to use information New technologies are, in principle, neutral technology in a highly innovative way to reconnect forces. However, they may have unequal inner North Belfast with the rest of the city and the social and economic impacts. There is a great region. deal of concern across the UK and internationally that information technology could lead to a worsening of social and Initiative 2002 will represent the first use of economic divisions by the creation of the so- community technology initiatives to address called ‘digital divide’ in which an elite group reconciliation as well as social exclusion issues. The has access to and is skilled in the use of initiative will operate on a cross-community basis, information technology and an excluded empowering local communities and providing them group neither has access to nor has the skills with a new medium by which they can celebrate needed to find and hold employment and to both their own cultures and what they hold in participate fully in a modern information common. society. INITIATIVE 2002 FLAX TRUST INITIATIVE 2002
However, merely providing access to the technology is not sufficient; individuals and communities need to be given the confidence, skills and opportunities to actively use the technology.This community empowerment is a vital leg of the initiative.
The final key element is the creation of additional employment in inner city North Belfast. This will be achieved by the transformation of the present Brookfield Mill complex into a creative and media industries hub for the City, enabling local people to be trained in, have experience of and work in the fastest growing sector of the UK and world economies.
CREATIVE AND MEDIA INDUSTRIES CENTRE FLAX TRUST INITIATIVE 2002
These ends will be achieved by
- capital investment to create a unique information technology infrastructure for the community
- active capacity building, training and outreach to the local communities, and
- strong business development and incubation initiative for the media and creative industries.
Installing the Last Mile
Across the UK and Ireland and internationally the key issue hindering the development of broadband communications technology is that of ‘bridging the last mile’. Telecoms operators can get their broadband technology to local exchanges relatively inexpensively but they find that the costs of cabling to homes and to small businesses is prohibitively expensive relative to what customers are willing and able to pay for the service.
The Flax Trust technology initiative has solved that problem in a way which has been piloted and proved to work and which is a world first. In effect, the Flax Trust has used its credibility with the local community to pull together 2,000 homes in the initial pilot area and make them appear as if they were a single large customer. Flax Trust has played the traditional role of the wholesaler and aggregrated the demand of those 2,000 homes to make it economic for telecoms operators to supply them with broadband services.
Flax Trust has done this by innovative use of existing technology. Flax Trust has acquired major broadband connections from BT and NTL. It has used optical wireless aerials placed on the roof of Brookfield Mill and other locations to enable signals to be sent and received relatively short distances to the surrounding streets and it has cabled those streets (which are mostly terraced houses, which facilitates the cabling) in a low cost way to enable each household to participate in the initiative.
INITIATIVE 2002 FLAX TRUST INITIATIVE 2002
Effectively, the community is connected to the equivalent of a Local Area Network in a company. In the pilot this local network will extend to 2,000 homes (1,000 in each ommunity) and 12 schools, churches and community centres in Ardoyne, Falls, Glenbryn, Woodvale and the Shankill.
However, the offering is not limited to access to broadband communications. Having established the network, the Flax Trust is now in a position to provide the following additional services
- relaying to the community of high quality broadcast terrestrial television (BBC, UTV and RTE) and radio stations.
- Creation of community television, managed on a cross-community basis, enabling those who do not have computers in their homes to receive information about community events and giving local clubs, schools and chuches (and, in time, local businesses) new ways of reaching their audiences. FLAX TRUST INITIATIVE 2002
Enabling and empowering the Community The University and Flax Trust have already jointly appointed a project officer to manage the University’s inputs to the overall initiative 2002. Comunity It is not enough to provide the infrastructure, volunteers are being recruited and trained to a high it is also necessary to give the local community standard of competence to that they can in turn support the confidence and ability to use the their neighbours in their first steps in working with technology to good effect. The Flax Trust, the new technologies. University of Ulster, local schools and its other partners have been piloting innovative ways of achieving this end. Flax Trust proposes that a number of Community Technology Centres will be established to provide local access to the necessary technical expertise, hardware and software and Flax Trust will support this process The aim is to move individuals and communities by developing in the Brookfield Mill complex - high level from merely having multimedia and broadband community TV, radio and recording studios. access towards the point where they can actually generate programme content. This is a step by step process, but already there are signs of both considerable enthusiasm and real progress by individuals.
A pilot programme for primary schools is being developed on a cross-border basis and the University of Ulster is committed to supporting local schools and colleges and providing final year media students to support locally identified projects.
Regeneration
Central to Initiative 2002 is the regeneration of Brookfield Mill as a beacon for the regeneration of inner North Belfast and as the home of the media and creative industries initiative. The creative industries account for 5% of the UK’s GDP and in the most recent government statistics were growing at a rate of 16% per annum. However, the creative industries are not just sizeable and important, they are also highly distinctive in their characteristics in that creative industry businesses tend to cluster very closely together to work with each other on a project by project basis and to place a strong emphasis on the quality and nature of the lifestyle as well as business success.
INITIATIVE 2002 FLAX TRUST INITIATIVE 2002
The creative industries have been drivers of regeneration in London, Paris, Dublin and Glasgow. They do not necessarily require high quality accommodation but they require appropriate accommodation provided at the right price. The creative industry clusters typically emerge in low-cost inner city areas where available accommodation can foster growth and also give a unique appearance and atmosphere usually driven by alternative and artistic culture.
There is a very close developing convergence between the creative industries and ICT. Broadband services are important for most of the creative industry sectors yet can be prohibitively expensive for small creative businesses. Thus, the driving concept for the redevelopment of the Brookfield campus is to become the focal point for the creative industries in Belfast linked synergistically to a world-first community technology initiative.
The Brokfield Mill complex provides 230,000 sq ft of accommodation in a number of buildings right on the community interface on the Crumlin Road. It remains accessible to both communities despite the local tensions. While structurally sound, the complex requires regeneration to meet the needs of the 21st Century, just as it met the differing development needs of first the 19th and then the 20th centuries.
Brookfield Mill West (the 5 storey building facing the Crumlin Road) should be refurbished to provide training and employment initiatives in information technology and the media on the ground floor, together with recording studios, business space providing ‘grow on’ space for businesses graduating from the proposed media business incubator) and an area of short-term living accommodation for incubatees, start up tenants and visiting artists using the studio and other facilities on the other 4 floors. FLAX TRUST INITIATIVE 2002
Brookfield Mill North (which currently houses the administrative offices of Flax Trust, a large art gallery and a small performance area) will be transformed by the removal of the addition which currently fronts the Crumlin road and will become an 11,000 sq ft media and creative industries incubator, supported by a small 3- screen cinema, gallery space and meeting space and provision to house some of the graduates of the incubation process. The removal of the extension to this building will open up the courtyard, which is currently almost completely enclosed and is used only for car parking and access. Flax Trust proposes to move the car parking out of the courtyard and to cover it with a dome or canopy to provide an enclosed, flexible open space for community and cultural events, performaces and exhibitions.
Finally Brookfield Mill South, which commands fine views over the City will be sold for apartment development on commercial basis, as is currently happening with the Linen Lofts, also in the complex.
Projected Oucomes
The anticipated outputs from Initiative 2002 include
- wiring 2,000 households in Ardoyne, Falls, Glenbryn, Shankill and Woodvale for community television and broadband access as a pilot of a new approach to tackling disadvantage and division - creation of a new cross-community structure to manage the initiative - deployment for the first time internationally a tested but high innovative approach to inner city development - provision of broadband internet access to creative industries in North Belfast to develop a creative industries hub - some 40 creative industry businesses established in North Belfast by 2004/5 - 11,000 sq ft creative industries incubator established, and - a high profile ‘digital advantage’ for North Belfast.
Only an initiative of this scale can tackle the vicious cycles of disadvantage and violence which currently scar inner North Belfast. The Flax Trust has already committed substantial resources of its own to trialling and piloting the technology involved, which is now proven and operational. It now seeks to partner with further public, private and social economy enterprises to implement the reality and to create a new future for inner North Belfast and its communities.
INITIATIVE 2002 FLAX TRUST
The Flax Trust is one of the largest and longest-established development trusts in Ireland and Britain. It is a registered charity formed in Belfast in 1977. For over 25 years it has been committed to the “reconciliation of a divided community through economic and social development, bringing peace to both communities, one person and one job at a time”.
The Flax Trust has a reputation for innovation and change. Its initial focus was on training and job creation and the provision of needed services for the disadvantaged community of the Ardoyne/Shankill interface in North Belfast.
Brookfield Business School Ltd
It developed the former Brookfield linen mill from a state of dereliction into a Community Aid 2000 Ltd 232,000 sq ft business centre in which it accommodated over 70 small businesses, acted as a business incubator for all of Belfast, creating over 400 businesses and provided IT Training training and personal development for several hundred people each year Nursing Care Programme through Brookfield Flax Shopping Centre BusinessSchool Ltd (Investor in People) and Community Aid 2000 Ltd.
It has built a medical and a shopping centre, developed affordable housing projects, Ardoyne Community the Foyer project. and initiated Healthcare Centre Ltd the local community and the Mill Diner association. Social programmes for both communities have served over 45,000 meals on wheels in addition to Day Care Centre meals. Health programmes Day Care Centre have involved over 10,000 people
Ardoyne Association HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
Flax Centre houses the Ardoyne Community Healthcare Centre Ltd, Healthy Living Centre, Doctor’s Surgery, Dental Surgery, Daycare Centre for the Elderly, ongoing programmes for men and women of all ages
Mutual of America - Tom Moran, Bill Barry and Ed Kenny check out the Pittsburgh
Brookfield Business Centre houses Ardoyne Community an International Arts Centre Healthcare Centre Ltd/ comprising a theatre, art gallery, Doctor’s Surgery dance studio, a craft centre and the Pittsburgh Bar & Restaurant.
Bannside Development Centre, in Portadown, is a socio-economic regeneration initiative which also serves to bridge the religious divide and promote mutual understanding. Interpoint, York Street
In the late 1980s the Flax Trust in a joint venture with Bombardier Aerospace, redeveloped the derelict Belfast Co-operative department store in York Street into a 180,000 sq ft excellent ‘neutral’ City Centre block. Interpoint houses Bombardier Aerspace training and management development and a range of new technology-based businesses. It has housed the Northern Ireland Forum for Peace and Reconciliation, the Patton Police Commission, the Northern Ireland Injuries Compensation Review, theNorthern Ireland Justice Review and since the New Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly, home to the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure.Interpoint was also home for the Novatech initiative which developed new technology based ventures through a unique process of technology transfer and licensing. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
Flax Housing Association Ltd
Some of the Flax Housing Projects - Thorndale, McCorry House and The Foyer In the mid 1990s the Flax Trust initiated the creation of Ulster Community Investment Trust Ltd. Today it is an established reality providing dedicated financial and mentoring support to socio- economic enterprises in Northern Ireland and the Border Counties. It can today be seen to have been visionary – as HM Treasury and the Department of Trade and Industry in London have adopted new policies to stimulate the creation of Community Development Finance Institutions across the UK. Northern Ireland already has the UK’s largest Community Development Finance The Foyer Project Institution (CDFI) in Ulster Community Investment Trust and again can be seen to be in the forefront of social economy development initiatives in the UK and Brookfield Business Centre Ireland.
Ulster Community Investment Trust Ltd Brian Howe, CEO, Trudi Dunlop, Marketing & Fr Myles Kavanagh
To reflect the new century and the new millennium, the Flax Trust undertook a fundamental review of its operations in 2001. The result was a recognition that it needed to develop further new ideas and new ways of interacting with the deeply disadvantaged and divided communities which it serves.Just as the 19th Century technology of linen spinning which was incorporated into Brookfield Mill at its consruction had to give way to new technologies and new products, so the 1980’s development of the Brookfield Mill - which in itself was one of the first such developments in the UK - has to give way to new approaches and to realise new opportunities.