TUV MLA Jim Allister has strongly backed the call for a 3G pitch in Bushmills. Speaking during an Adjournment debate in the Assembly on leisure facilities in Moyle, the TUV leader singled out the needs of Bushmills for particular mention, “In Bushmills, there is an undoubted need for a 3G pitch to complement the football facility, because the current pitch is such that, if the team play on it once a week, that is all that it can sustain in winter weather, and they have to go to train at the pitches in Ballymoney. So there undoubtedly is a need for a 3G pitch in Bushmills. I am very supportive of that proposition, and I am sure that, equally, there is a need elsewhere.”
On the wider issue of leisure facilities in Moyle, including the call for a major Leisure Centre in Ballycastle, Mr Allister said the sustainability of such facilities was the key.
In the course of his speech Jim Allister said:-
“I do not think that there could be any dispute about the great beauty of the Moyle area. On many occasions, there might be a quibble about the weather, but there can be no doubt about the beauty of the area. That, of course, means that, in the summertime, it has a vast influx of visitors. Therein is, I think, one of the practical difficulties in making recreational provision. Of course you want to optimise provision for the summer season and to have all that a visiting tourist would want. Very often, the problem is in sustaining that, with its overheads, throughout the rest of the year.
“We have had many examples, even in areas with a much larger population such as the city of Belfast etc, of the difficulties in sustaining, year on year, large leisure centres. There is a proposition before Moyle council that Moyle should have an all-singing, all-dancing leisure centre. That is a very attractive proposition, given what it would do for the area and visitors. However, I think that there is a responsibility to consider the feasibility of such a proposition and to establish what is sustainable in the long term. I think that that really is the key. Yes, there undoubtedly is under-provision at this moment, and there needs to be a better standard of provision, but the real question is about what is ultimately sustainable, not least for ratepayers. Of course, one of the problems to date is that, being a very small council, Moyle has had no opportunity really to make some of the provisions that it would like to make, because the ratepayer base is so small that it just could not hope to sustain that. I suspect that some have an ambition that, with the enlarged council, including Coleraine, Ballymoney, Moyle and stretching through to Limavady, they will be able to spread the burden considerably in that regard. That may well be a consideration, but at the bottom of all that is this question: is what is being proposed sustainable? That, I think, has to be a touchstone for what is proposed and obtained for the area.
“Other things need to be done. Moyle council has, in financial decisions, recently embarked on a feasibility study for 3G pitches in the glens and Ballycastle, and I am glad to see that Bushmills was added to the proposition. In Bushmills, there is an undoubted need for a 3G pitch to complement the football facility, because the current pitch is such that, if the team play on it once a week, that is all that it can sustain in winter weather, and they have to go to train at the pitches in Ballymoney. So there undoubtedly is a need for a 3G pitch in Bushmills. I am very supportive of that proposition, and I am sure that, equally, there is a need elsewhere.
“Given that those are relatively modest capital spends in the first instance and relatively modest overhead continuing spends into the future, they are very sustainable types of propositions that can bring a lot of benefit to the community. Certainly, I am not opposed to a swimming pool and a leisure centre in Ballycastle if that can be sustained, but the last thing that we want to do is embark on a course that, in three, four or five years’ time, gives rise to a controversy about how we sustain it. Therefore, it is a question of scale of what is doable and sustainable, and that will be the secret to cracking what is needed for Ballycastle and Moyle.”