{"id":20925,"date":"2023-01-20T12:04:52","date_gmt":"2023-01-20T11:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/?p=20925"},"modified":"2023-01-20T12:04:52","modified_gmt":"2023-01-20T11:04:52","slug":"crusaders-fc-disappointed-as-north-belfast-loses-out-again-on-vital-regeneration-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/2023\/01\/crusaders-fc-disappointed-as-north-belfast-loses-out-again-on-vital-regeneration-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Crusaders FC Disappointed As North Belfast Loses Out Again On Vital Regeneration Money"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

No levelling up for North Belfast community plans<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Crusaders Football Club has expressed disappointment after losing out on funding as part of the Government\u2019s Levelling Up Fund, branding the Northern Ireland process as \u2018flawed\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

The North Belfast club entered a bid for the most recent round two of the government\u2019s Levelling Up Fund with plans that would have benefited the area desperate for regeneration.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The club\u2019s plans included the building of the Shore Road Skills Centre, which would have provided the local community with a hub of wellness, sport, community outreach and education.<\/span><\/p>\n

The new centre was set to see organisations such as Belfast Met use the space as well as being able to expand the offerings of the Crusaders Full Time Football Academy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Already Crusaders Football Academy have partnerships with schools all across North Belfast offering young people the opportunity to pursue sport and wellbeing as part of their curriculum.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking of the news Crusaders Football Club treasurer Tommy Whiteside said:\u00a0 \u201cCrusaders Football Club are disappointed that our Shore Road Skills Centre Levelling Up Round 2 bid has been unsuccessful.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Levelling-Up Fund was highly competitive and, whilst oversubscribed, our club was very proud to be associated with such a strong bid.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are saddened too, that North Belfast, an area of multiple disadvantage, has lost the opportunity to build a much needed and vital piece of educational infrastructure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are, however, concerned that the Ministerial decision-making process in Northern Ireland for Round 2 was not in line with that in Great Britain, despite the fact that \u2018Funding Guidance Notes\u2019 were uniform across the United Kingdom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn Great Britain project bids had to have a minimum score of 75% to be considered by Ministers for funding; however in Northern Ireland the minimum score to be considered for funding was lowered to 56.67%.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Quality scoring threshold should be uniform across the UK to ensure equality and fairness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn England, Scotland and Wales multiple project bids in each Local Authority Area were funded, with the funding award based on the merits of the bid through the scoring matrix of the individual application.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, in Northern Ireland alone, only one project bid per Local Authority would be awarded funding. This new and unpublished criteria was applied retrospectively without the advance knowledge of any bidder.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCriteria introduced \u2018after the fact\u2019 in Northern Ireland, we say, renders the competitive process in round two fatally flawed.\u00a0 This is patently unfair to bidders in Northern Ireland.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cProject bids in Northern Ireland may (and are likely to) have been disadvantaged by this local \u2018bastardisation\u2019 of the Ministerial decision-making process.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFurther, had bidders been aware of the \u201cone project per Council\u201d criteria in advance, effectively giving the local authority a veto,\u00a0 it is unlikely that many would have expended many thousands of pounds in speculative bid-preparation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHaving spent considerable sums of our members’ money in bid preparation we will be raising our concerns now, directly with the Minister, Michael Gove, MP.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No levelling up for North Belfast community plans Crusaders Football Club has expressed disappointment after losing out on funding as part of the Government\u2019s Levelling Up Fund, branding the Northern Ireland process as \u2018flawed\u2019. The North Belfast club entered a bid for the most recent round two of the government\u2019s Levelling Up Fund with plans … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[388,1659,1660,1661],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20925"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20927,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20925\/revisions\/20927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}