Duncairn Community Partnership

Alexandra Park.... Sharing Space.... Young people leading the way!

Recently known as being the only park in Europe with an interface fence dividing and restricting access to the two main communities of lower North Belfast, Alexandra Park has now been totally transformed through the installation of a peace gate providing greater shared access for all!

Duncairn Community Partnership with the support of the Police, the Department of Justice and Belfast City Council successfully implemented a programme of awareness and promotional activity to support, monitor and celebrate this achievement.

Through a staged process of opening, the peace gate is now open during normal park opening times with little if any sectarian related incidents being recorded.

In the coming year Duncairn Community Partnership will be supporting specific programmes of work with young people from Holy Family Youth Centre and Mountcollyer Youth Centre to ensure the thoughts and ideas of our young people are at the forefront of any further developments within in the park.

Children from Holy Family and Mountcollyer Youth Clubs recently completed a cross community project whereby members from both clubs visited the Berlin Wall in Germany.

The visit was designed to give young people ideas and experiences of a number of projects developed following the wall being taken down. The visit provided a valuable insight to a range of potential projects that could be taken forward in Alexandra Park.

The partnership will also be supporting Currie Primary School and Holy Family Primary School in their aim of creating a cross community outdoor classroom within the confides of the park.

To this end Alexander Park Steering Group and Duncairn Partnership met with Belfast City Council's North Belfast Area Working Group. Councillors and Officers of this working group listened to a presentation, viewed a draft concept diagram and asked numerous questions in relation to the provision of the outdoor classroom.

The working group were asked to consider undertaking community consultation as a means of garnering community support to progress this proposal.

We will of course advise of any progress on this website!

Northern Ireland Justice Minister David Ford said it was an "important day for Northern Ireland. On this occasion, the people of the Alexandra Park area have shown great courage to take the first step and open up an interface barrier that has been a symbol of division and segregation for so long”