Closing thoughts
Belfast City Council Chief Executive Peter McNaney identified political leadership and good planning as two key themes in his closing thoughts.
“Nothing happens without political leadership,” Peter McNaney stated as he reflected on the lessons learned in the Belfast: Future City conference.
Politicians have shown leadership by delivering the peace process and devolution and will be key to developing inclusive conversations about the city’s future. “They are elected by people,” he pointed out. “They represent people. They bring their views to the table. We need to get far more real about supporting and working productively with political leadership to get the right outcomes .”
McNaney explained that the council was starting a year-long process to draft a vision and a community plan for the city’s development, which will then be finalised before the formation of the new council in May 2015.
“The plan is nothing, planning is everything,” he added. Good planning involves getting the right people in a room to “create an understanding of what is important” and building the relationships that will work “when things change, as they will.”
Plans are sometimes “formed in a vacuum” but they only work when resources are allocated and this will be “the real conversation” for all stakeholders.
“Before you have a conversation about ‘good’, you actually need to know what ‘good’ looks like,” McNaney said. “We need to be far more externally focused and diverse in that conversation, and open to learning rather than starting with preconceived view.” The economy is important but it is critical that “deprived communities who are marginalised become less marginalised.” The city will never become a settled place if those communities continue to be excluded.
All parts of the city need to have their say, including deprived communities, young and old and the business community, voluntary and community sector.
“We need to work harder for that conversation to reach the people who are not normally reached and we need to design that in,” he added.
The Chief Executive was “heartened” that so many people “want to make Belfast better” and had had the opportunity to gather and discuss the city’s future. We have to use the “goodwill and sheer dedication” of the people working in its various sectors and then “break down the barriers in the system with better relationships to agree joint way forward for the city.”
