MEP speaks up for the Glens and Antrim coast
13 June 2007
Speaking in Cushendall on 13 June 2007 at the launch of the Programme Report on the Natural Resource Rural Tourism Initiative, at an event hosted by the Causeway Coast & Glens Heritage Trust, Jim Allister MEP questioned if the funding for the management of AONBs in Northern Ireland was adequate and suggested County Antrim was not getting its fair share of direct grants from EHS.
In the course of his remarks Mr Allister said:-
“I strongly commend the Causeway Coast & Glens Heritage Trust for its work on behalf of this most spectacular part of Northern Ireland. I must, however, draw attention to and question why the Glens and Antrim Coast area has, over the past 5 years, been a poor relation in terms of EHS expenditure within Northern Ireland’s 9 AONBs.
Figures recently supplied to me by the Environment Minister suggest an imbalance in funding for this area. Beautiful as Strangford Lough is and superb as the Mournes are, I find it difficult to comprehend why these AONBs had £375,000 and £648,000 respectively in direct grants from EHS, over the last 5 years, for projects and sites in their AONBs, while the Causeway and Antrim Coast AONBs had a meagre £10,000! Why? County Antrim is every bit as deserving of EHS expenditure as County Down.
Moreover, for all the AONBs we need to get onto a more durable and equitable funding basis as far as their management is concerned. It seems to me that an approach which operates in England and Wales, through a Sustainable Development Fund, has much to recommend it. AONBs can’t flourish on their integral beauty alone. They need efficient, though not suffocating, management and such can’t be provided on a shoestring. It needs an adequacy and certainty of funding, leading to sensitive management; sensitive both to the needs of the landscape and the reality that for locals this is where they live and must be permitted to earn their living. Getting that balance right lies at the heart of successful management of this marvellous resource, that is the natural beauty of so much of Northern Ireland.”
