Belfast News: £9m Fool's Pardon For NI Executive?

Most people know, even most uneducated people know that in order to gain value for money you buy low and sell high. It would appear that the 'jokers' we have up in the Northern Ireland Executive have it the wrong way round, as one of East Belfast most prominent estates goes on the market at £6.5 million lower that what the public paid for it.

The East Belfast estate was purchased in 2001 for £9 million, with the aim of providing additional office accommodation for the Assembly, but despite costing the tax payer a fortune in maintenance over the past ten years, it has never been used. This story, is not the first to highlight massive government waste, with Invest NI hitting the headlines last year over millions wasted in offices never used.

The Ormiston Estate was built in the mid-1860s at the height of the industrial revolution and was commissioned by linen manufacturer James Combe. The estate was later sold in 1880 to shipbuilder Edward J Harland from world famous shipbuilders Harland and Wolff. After Edward Harland (1887) the estate was acquired by Harland's business partner William Pirrie. Following Pirrie’s death in 1924 the company became sole proprietor of the estate, with Campbell College purchasing it in 1928 and retaining it until the 1970s. The estate finally passed to Central Government before being purchased by the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2001 for £9 million from the Police Authority (predecessor of the Northern Ireland Policing Board).

Given the huge expenditure on this property only a fool would place it onto a depressed market prior to the Northern Ireland Assembly Elections. 

Questions need to be asked of the Assembly, such as why such a valuable piece of East Belfast Heritage has been allowed to simply rot, why East Belfast residents have been denied access to their own heritage and why we are paying a fortune preparing the city for the Titanic Centenary Celebrations, when we have allowed valuable assets such as Wolff's cottages to be demolished and now Harland's former home to rot.

Ormiston House which is situated off Hawthornden Road in East Belfast has just  gone on market with an asking price of just £2.5 million and a vain hope that a last ditch effort at outlining planning permission will increase it salability and value, despite not following through with earlier planning applications in 2001 and 2004.

The bottom line for the Northern Ireland Executive is that many people view them as no more than an expensive talking shop and the Northern Ireland public have awarded them all the fool's pardons there getting. Just because the Executive is desperate to raise cash, should not panic them into selling off assets that in time will regain value. The view of Simply Belfast is that should the Northern Ireland Assembly sell off this valuable asset at a loss, then those involved should be surcharged to compensate the public purse.

The 2011 Northern Ireland Assembly Elections are approaching, and we're all out of Fool's Pardons!

Created: 19th January 2011