You don't often get to tour a dump - but this weekend the public will be
given a chance to visit Belfast's former city dump at Dargan Road.
Visitors will learn how the 330-acre stretch of reclaimed land at the North
Foreshore is to be transformed.
Ambitious plans were mooted earlier this year for the likes of a bridge
spanning the motorway, drive-in cinema and even a funicular railway
connected to Cave Hill but these have hit the buffers in recent weeks, after
the Giant's Park missed out on a £20m windfall when it failed to reach the
final of the Big Lottery Fund's Living Landmarks competition.
But Belfast City Council has vowed that plans are still on track to open the
Giant's Park by 2012 - even if the attractions have to be scaled down. The
site is already zoned as recreational open space, and is expected to contain
a network of walkways and cycling routes. Along with the 200-acre Giant's
Park, the site will contain a new waste transfer station operated by Arc21,
which is in the process of being built.
The space will also include an innovative new environmental park, with the
aim of attracting organisations involved in environmental industries.
The council plans to generate electricity from the methane gas that is
created from the decomposing waste buried beneath the ground. This will help
power the environmental park and the facilities at Giant's Park, with a
significant surplus being sold back to the national grid.
Giant's Park information officer Barry Rolston said the organisers only
recently learned that the Big Lottery bid had been unsuccessful and are
currently looking at options such as finding new sources of funding or
introducing the visitor attractions in a gradual fashion.
"We have to go back and look at this. We haven't had time to work out
the best way forward - we want to go ahead and have the park open as planned
in 2012," he said.
Since the dump opened in 1975, around 10 million tonnes of rubbish have been
dumped and the average depth is now 20 metres - about the height of a
three-storey building.
This Saturday, three tours of the site will be taking place, at 2pm, 2.45pm
and 3.30pm.
To book a place, contact Emma Gilmore at 028 9032 0202 ext 3618.
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