December 2015 Speakers
The Club were delighted during last December to welcome speakers to the Club Sharon McNicholl, Belfast City Council's Strategic Planning and Policy Manager and Amy Hogg from the Charity Raleigh International. Their addresses were very well received. Sharon McNicholl talked about Belfast City Council's plans for the future under Belfast: Future City Making it real and Amy Hogg spoke about her 2016 Borneo Project with the Sustainable Development Charity Raleigh International.
Sharon highlighted that Belfast is on the cusp of an exciting new era of growth with Belfast City Council having, since April 2015, changed expanding to take in new areas, communities and, above all, new responsibility and powers for planning and regeneration and developing communities. They want to create the Belfast Agenda - a new vision for the future that ensures the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of the city with plans to meet housing need; identify areas to zone for business and green and open spaces and support the development of transport to meet the need of a modern, thriving and growing city. To this end they have launched the Belfast Conversation - a wide-ranging consultation about the kind of city we want to see in 15 years time.
Amy Hogg reported that her 2016 Borneo Project aims to set up a gravity fed water system, improve sanitation raising hygiene awareness and, in particular, create community integration. She noted that she had chosen her degree course – MEng. in Civil and Structural Engineering at Newcastle because of its link with Raleigh Int. and the vast opportunities it presented to work and travel overseas, improve the quality of life of those less fortunate and tackling climate change.