THE appointment of new board members to a quango overseeing the former Maze/Long Kesh site in Co Antrim must spur new momentum to redevelop the location and ensure the public gets "value for money", it has been warned.
The six new board members for the Maze/Long Kesh Development Corporation were announced by Stormont's Executive Office on Tuesday, and will serve a five-year term while each earning £6,000 a year plus expenses.
Their appointment comes ahead of the planned appointment of a new head of the corporation in the new year, who will be paid £30,000 annually and replace outgoing chair Terence Brannigan.
However, future development of the site, located outside Lisburn, is dependent on ministerial agreement at Stormont.
Other than the relocation of the Balmoral Show from Belfast in 2013, the site has lain largely dormant after plans to build a £18 million peace centre - part of a wider £300m redevelopment that would have created thousands of jobs - were placed on ice as a result of an intervention that year from then-first minister Peter Robinson.
In his 'letter from America' to DUP colleagues, Mr Robinson said plans for the centre did not have political consensus, amid unionist concerns the site would become a "shrine" to IRA prisoners who died during the Hunger Strikes in 1981.
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The £18m EU funding for the peace centre was later withdrawn.
The development corporation board was initially established in 2011.
Following the reappointment of the board in 2019, there were calls for the quango to be shelved over its operating costs of £1.9m.
Concerns over the costs of the quango were raised again on Tuesday when the new board was announced.
The new members are Professor Cathy Gormley-Heenan, provost of Ulster University, and the university's visiting Professor Diana Fitzsimons; Kevin Gamble, the CEO of Féile an Phobail; Chartered Accountants Ireland fellow Áine Gallagher; director of Belfast's Bryson Architects, Maurice Johnston; and group property director of retailer the Henderson Group, Mark Adrain.
South Belfast SDLP MLA Matthew O'Toole said the corporation's costs were a "significant sum" for the public to pay during a time of budget constraints, and said the appointments must bring "some much needed impetus" to the redevelopment of the 347-acre site, which has been "dragging on for well over a decade with little progress in sight".
“I don’t think anyone would be able to argue that the public has received value for money in recent years,” Mr O’Toole said.
“The Maze/Long Kesh site has huge potential; it is in a prime location and there is no end of possibilities to utilise it to improve our economy, create jobs and attract investment.
"Like so many opportunities in the north, it has been squandered by political failure. We cannot stand by and allow this site of strategic regional importance to lay dormant any longer.”
When asked by the Irish News about the corporation's remit and what it currently does at the site, an Executive Office spokesperson said its brief includes "maintenance and preservation of the listed and retained buildings and scheduled monuments; essential health and safety works; maintaining security of the site; and managing the existing tenants".
They added: "In addition, the Development Corporation continues to consider its approach to development of the site in order to be in a position to provide advice to ministers. Development of the site will be subject to ministerial agreement on the way forward.”
