Northern Ireland Green Party leader calls for transport powers to go to local councils to sort congestion

The leader of the Green Party in Northern Ireland has called for local transport powers to be passed to local councils to help improve traffic congestion in Belfast.

Recent weeks have seen traffic congestion in the city centre, especially during evening rush hour, with Translink advising of delays at peak times. Ongoing work surrounding the new £340 million Grand Central Station and a major resurfacing scheme of the A2 Sydenham Bypass have been contributing to the traffic issues.

As part of a new series, Belfast Live is asking people across the city who have been impacted by the congestion what they would do to fix the traffic issues.

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Today, it's the turn of Mal O'Hara, leader of the Green Party in Northern Ireland, who has said a "lack of ambition" at Stormont is holding Northern Ireland back from transforming and improving.

Senator O'Hara held a seat on Belfast City Council until the 2023 local elections, and earlier this year was appointed to the Seanad in the Republic of Ireland. He filled the vacancy left by Sinn Féin's Niall Ó Donnaghaile, which he described as an "honour of a lifetime."

As for what we can do to improve the traffic issue evident in Belfast city centre, Mal has called for transport powers to be given to Belfast City Council.

He said: "Belfast is an outlier in all of Western Europe. A city our size anywhere else would have control of local transport powers - we do not.

"When Greens brought that motion for that debate at Belfast City Council unfortunately Sinn Féin, the DUP and UUP voted it down.

"We need the powers to be held in Belfast. We know the repeated instability at Stormont, the lack of ambition from the Department for Infrastructure means we haven't seen the pace of change other cities underwent, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic."

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During his time as a councillor, Mal was part of the campaign to pedestrianise the Union Street area of the city. More recent calls to pedestrianise the Hill Street area in the Cathedral Quarter have been put on hold due to "several competing priorities" within the Department for Infrastructure.

Mal said the campaign to pedestrianise Union Street took a lot of work, and has argued that if Council held such powers, the city could be transformed.

He said: "I led the charge to have Union Street pedestrianised partially - two years of constant lobbying, emails, phone calls, herding, cajolling, to get that little bit of transformation in the city.

"That's an exemplar of how it can be done well. If Council held those powers, we could transform the city to be liveable, accessible, and have good public transport in it. I don't think that vision exists at the Assembly."

Video by Belfast Live videographer Harry Bateman.

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