Belfast Campus Project Will Build Jobs

There's a degree of success ahead for the beleaguered construction sector.

In what is being billed as the biggest building project since Victoria Square was undertaken, a £250m development by the University of Ulster in York Street has been given the go-ahead.

This will be a huge boost for the building trade and lead to many hundreds of jobs being created during the six or seven years it is expected to take to complete the project.

The University of Ulster's Vice Chancellor Professor Richard Barnett (pictured) welcomed the announcement by the NI Employment and Learning Minister, Sir Reg Empey, of a £16m funding pledge for the proposed university campus in Belfast's Cathedral Quarter.

The university will relocate many courses from its Jordanstown campus to Belfast as part of the scheme.

It is expected the construction of the new campus will be completed by 2018.

The funding announcement was made at the Belfast City of Quarters conference, a two day event, which continues on Friday at the Culturlann in west Belfast.

Professor Barnett said: "This commitment has been made following a detailed and comprehensive review of the University's economic appraisal for the Greater Belfast by both the Department for Employment and Learning and the Department of Finance and Personnel.

"This marks another important milestone in the development of a new Greater Belfast campus," he said.

"This is not only good news for higher education. The new campus we are developing will play a significant role in the academic, cultural, social and economic regeneration of the city of Belfast.

"The relocation of 12,000 students from our Jordanstown campus to join the 2,000 students currently studying in York Street will not only boost the city centre but will also link in well with other exciting developments across the city including the opening up of Belfast's cultural offering in the Cathedral Quarter, the Gaeltacht Quarter and Titanic Quarter and the educational, economic and cultural benefits should ripple right throughout the province."

The university is also to build on the success of its elite sporting facilities including the £20 million state-of-the-art High Performance Centre which is being used by some of the country's top athletes and professional sports stars for training, fitness and rehabilitation.

The top academic also said: "Ulster continues to work with the Department for Employment and Learning to develop its plan to expand Magee.

"In December we signed an option agreement with Foyle and Londonderry College to secure 30 acres of land for expansion and we are focussing on a plan which builds on successes at Magee like the Intelligent Systems Research Centre with has the largest robotics floor of any university in Europe, the School of Creative Arts in the Foyle Arts Building and the International Conflict Research Centre - a joint venture with the United Nations University," he concluded.

(BMcC/GK)