Lagan Corridor

A new Lagan Corridor Strategy has been developed to provide a clear way forward for the Council in the delivery of its riverside regeneration programme for the River Lagan. It is an integral component of the overall Council Strategy and spells out the part the Council will play in making the aspirations and plans become a reality. It represents a commitment to specific objectives that the Council believes can be achieved and delivered within the framework of the Belfast Metropolitan Area Plan in partnership with other agencies.

Everyone recognises the central role of the River Lagan and the Lagan Navigation as a regional asset, with the potential to provide a wide range of environmental, social, community and economic benefits across the Council area and beyond. With increased enhancement, awareness and usage of the waterway, the Council hopes to create ‘Lisburn’s Riverfront’ in the centre of the City which will be a high quality riverside environment with enhanced leisure and tourism focus, improved amenity, recreation and public realm facilities that will result in significant investment from both the public and private sector.

This Strategy will provide a framework illustrating how planning and design policies and principles should be implemented in Lisburn’s Lagan Corridor, where there is a recognised need to control, guide and promote positive change and subsequent successful regeneration.
Rich wildlife on the River Lagan
Key Elements of the Strategic Framework
The Strategic Framework sets out a detailed Nodes and Links Strategy, where informal and formal Nodes of activity are identified and enhanced along the length of the corridor, connected to one another by green Links, thereby creating stretches of tranquillity interspersed with Nodes of activity. The result is a multifaceted environment, which has wide ranging, benefits at a local and regional level and provides a rounded portfolio of facilities and services from which people can pick and choose.

The Strategic Framework for Lisburn’s Lagan Corridor is proposed within the context of a reopened Lagan Navigation, connecting into a regional and island wide waterway network, thus highlighting the importance of this initial phase of change along Lisburn’s Lagan Corridor.

The Strategy supports and builds on the Council’s submission to the Belfast Metropolitan Area Plan and establishes a planning framework for the plan area supported by land use planning policies for the period up to 2015. This has provided Lisburn City Council with an unmissable opportunity to influence the planning policy for the future of the Lagan Corridor. The Council is also engaging with significant private sector landowners within the Lagan Corridor to encourage and support any schemes they might wish to take forward.

Key Benefits - Realising The Asset
The delivery of a Strategic Framework supporting the Lagan Corridor Initiative will provide an important range of benefits. These benefits are environmental, social, community and economic, and are consistent with the type of benefits which have been identified looking at worked examples of Best Practice elsewhere.

> Recognition of the central role of the River Lagan/ Lagan Navigation as a regional asset

> Provision of a wide range of environmental, social, community and economic benefits across the Council area and beyond

> Increased enhancement, awareness and usage of the waterway environment

> The river in the city, the creation of ‘Lisburn’s Riverfront’

> High quality riverside regeneration enhancing both the natural and built environments

> Conversion and re use of buildings and riverside and canal side sites

> Leisure and tourism focus

> Improved amenity, recreation and public realm facilities

> Added value from a partnership approach

> Significant investment potential (public and private)

> Short term and long-term employment opportunities.
1. Local children check out their catch as part of a school project on the River Lagan.

2, 3 & 4. Water based leisure activities are great fun on the River Lagan, with the annual Dragon Boats Race and the Duck Derby fast becoming popular attractions.