THE chairman of the corporation tasked with redeveloping the divisive former Maze prison site has said it would be a "dereliction of duty" not to find a way forward.
Terence Brannigan gave an update on the Maze Long Kesh Development Corporation (MLKDC) after it emerged it has dropped proposals for a peace centre.
He said the board has "set this element aside" and is working to identify options that would secure widespread support.
A proposed multi-million-pound redevelopment of the site near Lisburn has stalled in a near six-year spat between the DUP and Sinn Féin over the peace centre idea.
In 2013, then DUP leader and first minister Peter Robinson halted the peace centre plans after unionist critics argued it would become a shrine to terrorism.
Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness, then deputy first minister, responded by saying no further development would take place until the issue was resolved.
EU funding of £18 million for the centre was later withdrawn and planning permission lapsed last year.
In the years since the fall-out, most requests to use or visit the site have not been approved. Stormont officials have mostly maintained this block since the executive's collapse in 2017.
The Maze/Long Kesh (MLK) prison was the site of the IRA hunger strikes and held some of the north's most notorious paramilitaries before it closed in 2000.
Mr Brannigan said the board has developed an "updated strategy" aimed at "attracting cross-community and political agreement".
He said the proposed peace centre was a "potential barrier due to a number of factors", including the withdrawal of EU funding and the lapsing of planning permission.
"Given the inclusion or otherwise of any such facility is purely a matter for ministers, our board has set this element aside and focused on developing a much broader strategy to realise the full potential of the Maze Long Kesh site," he said in a statement.
Mr Brannigan said the site could be a catalyst for around £800 million of investment and up to 14,000 "high quality, sustainable jobs".
"For us not to seek to find a pragmatic way forward would be a dereliction of duty for a corporation charged with securing the regeneration of this strategically located site," he added.
MLKDC, a public body with an annual spend of around £1m, yesterday declined to publish its latest proposals for the site.
The Executive Office said any decision on future development of the site "would be a matter for ministers" and "no decisions have been taken".
Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly said the DUP had "bowed to pressure from other unionist parties" not to develop the site, and the listed prison buildings "will be part of the development of the rest of the site".
DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson said his party supported development of the Maze as a "shared space", but the "behaviour of republicans however meant there could be no consensus".
