Belfast Civic Trust 'Registered Places' scheme

By registering their places with Belfast Civic Trust, we can help local people to produce their own "very local plans" in anticipation of the new councils coming into being in two or three years' time.

The current Review of Public Administration in Northern Ireland affords an opportunity to recognise the immense resource of the people in local areas.

We cannot afford to ignore our historic townlands, villages, neighbourhoods, counties and cities. These places in Northern Ireland are celebrated in literature and music – they are known world-wide.

While we would actively prefer to retain the counties and cities of Northern Ireland as modern administrative units reflecting the historic and culturally significant boundaries which are still shown on our maps, Belfast Civic Trust is confident that even within government’s newly invented boundaries for local government, the local "places" that are important to us all will still be there in three years’ time.

Belfast Civic Trust is therefore establishing a “REGISTER OF PLACES” in Northern Ireland. These places are often already known by name – they are shown on maps – they exist, but sadly, Government does not recognise them.

Belfast Civic Trust now invites individuals and groups of people across Northern Ireland to “send us a map” of your place and “tell us its name”. Your place might be a village, a neighbourhood, a few streets, a townland, part of a suburb or part of a city or town centre; it might be some fields and a stream. It will be a place where people want to

• celebrate its culture and history
• determine its own future
• write its own plan
• contribute to debate on local topics and
• design its own management.

25 years of work by Belfast Civic Trust has shown us that the people who know most about local areas are the people who live there. There is surprisingly widespread agreement on the extent of people’s places – boundaries are often naturally defined – a river or stream, a marsh or hill, a railway line or main road or a park.

We therefore want you to help us in the first step – creating the “Register of Places”. Please send us a map. Simply draw a red line on a map of your area (any size or scale of map will do – we will link it to the official computerised map of Northern Ireland) – and tell us its name. We will record the place on the map and unless there are overlapping areas or gaps, your boundary will be the one we use in the Register. Ideally, you will choose to think of the place as one which is important to you or your group, historically, now and for the future.

We will publish the Register of Places which will be available for updating at any time, as people decide to register their places. Once registered, Belfast Civic Trust will assist each registered place to compile its own local historical, geographical and social documentation (effectively confirming and celebrating its identity) and to prepare its own "very local plan" for the future.

So “Send us a map” of your place and “tell us its name”. We will then start the process.

Belfast Civic Trust
28 Bedford Street
BELFAST
BT2 7FE

Contact: Arthur Acheson at 028 9046 1414
arthuracheson@hotmail.com