BELFAST City Centre Management (BCCM), the organisation behind improving business life, public spaces and the safety of the city centre, has revamped its entire board structure following a strategic review of its operations.
It wants the revamped board to reflect a more commercial approach to its delivery and comprising a group of independent strategic experts committed to taking the organisation forward by identifying new opportunities and projects.
And the process has now begun to recruit new members, based on their skills and expertise relating to business, finance and marketing.
BCCM will also convene a new City Strategic Forum, ensuring that the skills, insight and expertise of the outgoing board members, alongside other strategic partners, will continue to influence and encourage strategic decisions for the benefit of the city.
Projects which will benefit from the new structural change and direction will include the Beat Initiative, which provides two dedicated police officers to patrol the city centre, Retail Crimewatch, which issues exclusion orders to prolific shop-lifters, and the night time volunteer steering group, which sends 200 volunteers on the city’s streets in the evenings to provide support to people in trouble.
It will also have a focus on festive lighting, while BCCM will also undertake research across a number of key areas like footfall, retail sales tracking, vacant property analysis and health check and bench marking, providing essential data for members of its retail steering group.
Belfast City Centre manager Geraldine Duggan said: “Our role has always been to deliver additional services to the city under the three themes of public space management, safer city and economic performance, which contribute in a measurable way to a cleaner, safer, more attractive, accessible and economically vibrant city.We do this in partnership with our strategic partners the Department for Communities and Belfast City Council.
“Our new model will help better these projects and more importantly make them more commercially focused, enabling the inclusion of other strategic stakeholders who will bring fresh ideas and scope on how we can drive BCCM forward for the benefit of everyone who works, lives and shops here."
Lisa Toland, head of economic initiatives and international development at Belfast City Council said: “This marks a positive change in one of our city’s most important organisations, which for more than 20 years has been providing an essential service in the city and the new proposed changes will only seek to enhance their offering.”
Mark O’Donnell from the Department for Communities added: “Business engagement is one of Belfast City Centre Management’s core strengths, evident most recently as the city centre tries to recover from the devastating Primark fire.
“The formation of the City Strategic Forum will enhance the Department’s working relationship with key stakeholders to work towards the sustainable growth of the city.”
