A local councillor has said that knock-on effect of the costs of the city’s airport on the Derry’s annual rates bill is forcing local businesses to close.
The warning came at Thursday afternoon’s monthly meeting of Derry City and Strabane District Council, held at the Guildhall.
At the meeting, the independent councillor Paul Gallagher proposed that the council ‘seek an urgent meeting’ with Causeway Coast and Glens council to look at how it can pay towards the annual subvention of the City of Derry Airport (CoDA), given the level of usage of the facility from people in that area.
The four legacy councils of Ballymoney, Coleraine, Limavady and Moyle merged on April 1, 2015 to become the new Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council.
Cllr Gallagher said that the council area was ‘on the doorstep’ of the airport, adding that it had recorded no increase in its rates bill over the past three years.
Derry and Strabane struck the rates for the coming year earlier this month, recording a rise of almost three per cent.
Following the agreement last year of a two-year funding package for the City of Derry Airport, there was no proposed increase to the annual subvention budget which is paid by local ratepayers, and currently stands at £2.145m a year.
Cllr Gallagher also told the meeting that the continued costs of running the airport was resulting local businesses being unbale to pay their rates bills, resulting in increasing numbers of locally owner stores have to shut their doors.
In May of last year, a city centre based dry cleaners was forced to close after 18 years.
The owner of Smooth Operators at Sackville Street said that the time that their rates bill -£6,000 a year in rates – was ‘too much’.
He then proposed that the local council should now explore all ‘avenues of revenue’ to cover the airport’s operating costs, which was seconded by the independent councillor Gary Donnelly.
However, the independent councillor Patsy Kelly said that council would also need to meet with Donegal County Council and Fermanagh and Omagh District Council if the running costs were to be shared by councils whose citizens use the airport.
The DUP’s David Ramsey added that if other council’s were to pay for the airport, then it would mean selling parts of the airport off to them.
The concerns were echoed by Sinn Fein’s Eric McGinley, who added that the proposal ‘had the potential to go all over the place’.
He continued that the meeting Cllr Gallagher was seeking was ‘already part’ of the City of Derry Airport board’s stakeholder engagement.
“We could end up talking to 17 different councils,” he added.
Funding
Meanwhile, the SDLP’s John Boyle, who declared an interest given that he sits on the airport’s board, said that he was ‘tended to agree with Cllr McGinley’.
Cllr Boyle continued that it was more pressing for council to ensure that the ‘promises’ made by central government to allocate a massive funding package for the future development of the airport in terms of new routes and infrastructure are followed through.
“The £4m for capital development, we haven’t seen the colour of that,” Cllr Boyle added.
However, Cllr Gallagher defended his proposal adding that as a company, the airport was ‘failing’.
“How many people get off that plane and go straight up the road to the Causeway Coast? That would be good to know,” he continued.
Cllr McGinley then proposed an amendment to Cllr Gallagher’s proposal, which read: ‘Council asks the CoDA board to seek an urgent meeting with all relevant councils in order that they consider a contribution to the airport’.
The amendment was seconded by the SDLP’s Martin Reilly who added that he ‘didn’t see the urgency’ in meeting with Causeway Coast given that they had already struck its rates.
Cllr Gallagher said that he would not support the amendment, adding that ‘year on year, every time there’s a shortfall at the airport, they come back to council’.
He added that the cost of the shortfall is then passed on to local ratepayers – including local businesses, many of which he said have been forced to close due to the costs.
“We see all these shops closing, and every one of them, or the vast majority of them, are saying it’s the high costs of rates,” he said.
“So how many jobs are we losing?”
Responding, Cllr McGinley described the comments as ‘nonsense’.
The amended proposal to meet with all relevant councils to consider a contribution to the airport was then passed after a majority vote.
Above - Deirdre McBay pictured at her business Smooth Operators which closed last year after 18 years in business. She said their annual rates bill of £6,000 was 'too much'.
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