SPRINGVALE: University of Ulster must come clean

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Last month's announcement by the Minister for Employment and Learning, Carmel Hanna, that her Department was seeking a review of the Springvale Campus in West Belfast, has attracted scathing criticism from community activists.

Many believe that the review, which is to look at the "affordability and sustainability" of Springvale, will be the mechanism the Department will use to justify a decision to bring the project to a close. UNA GILLESPIE of the West Belfast Economic Forum says the threat to the campus is part of a sectarian agenda to ensure the most deprived constituency in the North stays marginalised and does not get access to the resources and finance required for economic regeneration.

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On Thursday, 26 September, the SDLP Minister for Employment and Learning, Carmel Hanna, amid a media fanfare, announced that the Springvale campus in West Belfast was being put on hold and the entire project was to be reviewed. At the same time in West Belfast, community representatives on the Board were being told the same news.

The Springvale campus was first announced in 1993 and was hailed by ministers then as the peace dividend for West Belfast. Ten years of extensive consultation culminated in the project, which was to include a Community Outreach Centre, an Applied Research Centre and a main campus. It was to address the need for increased student places in the north of Ireland and meet the social and economic regeneration needs of North and West Belfast.

The first indications community sector representatives had that there were any problems with the Springvale Educational Village Project came on Thursday morning 26 September, at the regular board meeting.

The letter from the Minister stated: "I have learned recently from my officials, that progress with a major element of the Springvale Project has become problematic... It is also my understanding that these difficulties are proving very difficult to resolve... I am aware that they include issues of affordability and viability. In these circumstances I would ask you and your Board to undertake a major review of the Campus project."

Questions to answer

The situation and the manner in which it was handled throw up fundamental questions about this project:

• Why were representatives on the Board not made fully aware that there were problems with the outline business case in the previous meetings?
• Why were these problems brought to the department for discussion rather than brought to the Board for discussion and resolution?
• Why, if these were technical issues for the two institutions that could be resolved, was the Board told to conduct a major review of the entire project?
• Why again, if these were temporary technical problems, was there a need for media drama and hype and a top-secret press briefing carried out at the same time as this community was being informed?

University of Ulster wants out

The answer, we believe, is that the University of Ulster wants out.

The evidence for this is as follows:

1. Since BIFHE (Belfast Institution for Higher and Further Education) came on board for the project as the second partner, the consistent lack of interest in the project from the University has been discernible at all levels.

2. The draft Academic Plan circulated for consultation two years ago proved that all the modern, high tech and cutting edge courses and future economic development and investment for the University lay not in Springvale but in Coleraine and York Street. The courses proposed for Springvale for the University were social sciences oriented and while crucially important in themselves, needed the cutting edge education and training courses linked to future economic trends as well. The health technologies long argued for by this community for Springvale are being located at the Art College in York Street.

3. The Community Outreach Building is the only element of the project up and running. The University of Ulster has a 50% financial commitment to this project and also an obligation to take up so many square metres on site. The University also has a commitment to operating a joint Springvale project office for the Outreach centre. To date, BIFHE has located departments and offices on site and is developing programmes for the site. BIFHE uses the building for meetings, seminars and staff development, etc. To date, the University of Ulster has not taken up any of its office space. The joint Springvale office has not come about. The university has had no presence in the building at all nor has it made any use of the building.

Financial obligations

Issues about the viability and sustainability of the project are, on the surface, the reason for the review. These were never issues during the last three very expensive economic appraisals that were carried out on the project. Why is viability suddenly a problem for an Outline Business case that hasn't even been completed? Who prompted the review idea in the first place?

The minister's statement said that the Department's £40 million investment was contingent upon the two institutions making up the £18 million shortfall. So if we look at the evidence in relation to the finance. A private donor has put forward £9m of the money and that finance is not in question. BIFHE is committed to an input of £1.5 million per year and the rest (£8 million) is the responsibility of the University. BIFHE stated publicly yesterday both at the Board meeting and via the media that it has no problem with its financial obligations to the project.

So that leaves the University. Where is its financial commitment? Whose money has not been put in? The University of Ulster's. Now, UU may come back and say it has financial difficulties, but this has not stopped it investing millions in other projects in Coleraine and Magee. It hasn't prevented it developing proposals for the future of the York Street campus. So, why is the Springvale campus the one to suffer?

We are also being told that 'things' have changed quite a bit in the last few years and that this review is necessary. What has changed? The need for more student places has not changed. The socio-economic conditions of north and west Belfast have certainly not changed and the educational underachievement in these areas has not changed. The campus was to provide a catalyst for this change and an engine for social and economic regeneration.

The University must now come clean and admit that it wants out of the project.

Sectarian agenda

It would not be stretching the imagination too far to say that the events surrounding the campus are only a symptom of a malaise pervading the area at the minute. This is part of a sectarian agenda being led within the new institutions to ensure that West Belfast stays deprived, marginalised and does not get access to the resources and finance required to regenerate the most deprived constituency in the North.

This sectarian agenda is being driven from within unionism, probably at the instigation of the great No men on the Shankill, who dubbed it a 'fenian university' from the outset and actively opposed it. This lobby has been aided and abetted by Carmel Hanna's SDLP, which never fully supported the campus and has few votes to lose in West Belfast.