By Lesley Walsh
ARDS and North Down Council has ‘dropped the ball’ on plans to develop a 3G sports pitch in Portavogie, a local councillor has claimed.
Ards peninsula politician Robert Adair said there was ‘great frustration’ among ratepayers over the ‘tortoise pace’ the council was making to upgrade the New Road pitch to suitable standards.
The DUP councillor said there was similar frustration felt by people in Portaferry over its 3G pitch plans and the continuing difficulties with the town’s beleaguered Sports Centre, at Cloughey Road.
Mr Adair addressed the May meeting of the council’s Community and Wellbeing committee when he said he was ‘very disappointed’ by a council report on the issues.
He said the report’s notes on the Portavogie facility was ‘just a copy and paste’ of previous updates to local stakeholders, and contained ‘nothing new’ since February this year.
“We as councillors are here to oversee the delivery of the project and there is nothing for us to scrutinise,” he said.
Stressing the council had ‘dropped the ball quite a number of times over the 3G pitch’, he reminded members the authority had dragged its feet so long that full planning permission acquired in 2018 had lapsed.
He acknowledged subsequent concerns raised by NI Water had arisen to stymie the development, but added, ‘if we had moved along at the time this wouldn’t have happened’.
Noting that the pitch’s training facility was already temporarily closed earlier this year, he said that if improvements were not carried out urgently, Portavogie Rangers FC would have no place to play home matches.
Reflecting on the former Ards Borough Council’s ‘traffic light system’ of prioritising projects, including red indicating ‘not very good’, Mr Adair called for its reinstatement.
He further called for a change in council updates from bi-monthly to monthly ‘so we in this council can scrutinise’ progress.
“I’m fed up with the deadlock and the community are fed up with it,” he said. “People in the Ards peninsula pay the same rates as everyone else in the borough.”
Turning to neighbouring Portaferry, Mr Adair noted the rare absence of councillor Joe Boyle, but said he was also calling for monthly reports on plans to improve the town’s 3G pitch.
Mr Boyle is routinely vocal in demanding action to remedy standards at Portaferry Sports Centre, which is jointly run by Ards and North Down Council, and St Columba’s College.
In May’s report by the head of Leisure Services, members read that council officers were in regular contact with the College regarding the condition of the problematic sports hall floor.
However, it stated: “To date, no commitment has been given by the school as to when the facility will be repaired to facilitate both the school and public use of this critical facility.
“Council staff have managed to cordon off a small section of the hall which is deemed safe to use and will continue to utilise this space for class delivery.”
Alderman Trevor Cummings supported the proposal, stating that though he did not represent that same area as Mr Adair, similar procedures governing all council areas could have an impact on issues local to him.
The DUP member said he had been ‘pursuing a number of things in Comber, the Parkway initiative, and Ballygowan’ and said projects needed to be completed ‘in a timely fashion’ to enable other developments to go ahead.
Graeme Bannister, the director of Community and Wellbeing, said he was ‘happy to take this on board’ and suggested Mr Adair meet with the authority’s Capital Projects Units ‘to discuss in detail’ exactly what he hoped to find in the bi-monthly reports.