THE PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT ALLIANCE today launched its Council election manifesto. The main demand of its manifesto is the abolition of ILEX, the urban regeneration company, in favour of more democratic control of the future of the City.
People Before Profit are standing four candidates for Derry City Council, Connor Kelly (Cityside), Colm Bryce (Northland), Davy McAuley (Waterside) and Diane Greer (Waterside Rural). Below are the candidates pictured with Assembly Candidate Eamonn McCann.
Candidate for Northland, Colm Bryce, said, “The recent review of ILEX, the first in its eight year history, was a damning indictment of a company that has not delivered on what it was tasked to do, despite using £21 million of public money on inflated salaries and other costs. The essential problem is that that ILEX was based on a flawed model of attracting multinational companies and propping up a property-speculation bubble. Then the recession hit and the property market collapsed. Yet ILEX still envisage this sort of development for Fort George.
“The vast rows of empty and unfinished office blocks along the Liffey in Dublin should be a salutary lesson to anyone who still clings to these pie-in-the-sky dreams. In the absence of attracting any development to the City for 8 years, ILEX has now immersed itself in the City of Culture project. There is a deep concern that ILEX view the City of Culture simply as a way of developing Ebrington, rather than encouraging the development of existing arts and cultural organisations in the City."
Mr Bryce said, *“The review of ILEX was welcomed by local councillors, who said that ILEX had ‘turned the corner’ and things were now improving. But still there is not a single bit of investment in the Ebrington or the Fort George sites and none on the horizon. Anything ILEX has done, has been done with public money, our money and yet they are entirely unaccountable to the public. If that is the case, let’s use government spending to create sustainable, useful jobs and let’s decide how to do that democratically and openly. ILEX is undemocratic and unaccountable. In other cities such regeneration companies have had a finite lifespan.The role it has should be taken over by the City Council as soon as possible, and certainly by 2014, not 2020 as ILEX proposes.”
People Before Profit candidates have pledged to use their mandate to demand greater accountability from the Council and stand up for local workers and local residents. They are also calling for development decisions to be made by the City Council and not by unelected and unaccountable ‘regeneration boards’.*
People Before Profit has also pledged to oppose all job cuts and privatisation. They also intend to campaign for a massive investment in youth provision for the City.
Cityside candidate, Connor Kelly, said “Too often, the Council is tied up with development decisions and there is too much secrecy about those decisions. We will stand for the interests of local residents. The Review of Public Administration called for planning powers to be returned to Council. We are for that happening now. But we need absolute transparency of Council planning decisions and a redressing of the imbalance, where property developers have a right to appeal decisions, but local residents don’t. We should never again allow the situation that developed in Galliagh, where residents had to campaign for 18 months to stop an undemocratic regeneration board from imposing its plans on the area.”