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Date Posted: 01:28:04 04/13/03 Sun
Author: Dave Mawhinney
Subject: Re: Newtownabbey Boat Club
In reply to: community relations 's message, "Newtownabbey Boat Club" on 16:53:00 04/26/02 Fri

I find it interesting that Mr Kelleher refers to managing the University's affairs on "business principles". I would suggest that he take a long hard look at the facts behind how the University came into possession of the land on which Newtownabbey Boat Club stands. In 1975 when the then North Belfast Yacht Club, based at Whitehouse, was in the position of being cut off from access to the sea by the building of the M5 motorway members negotiated with the DoE, Newtownabbey Borough Council and the Polytechnic at Jordanstown for a joint venture between the club and Polytechnic. The land on which the new boat club was formed was sold to the Dept of Education by Newtownabbey Borough Council for the greatly undervalued price of £5000 on the understanding that this site would always allow access to the sea for members of the public and be used for recreational purposes. The boat club also received £28,000 of compensation for resettlement which, under the terms of the agreement, was paid directly to the Polytechnic. Allowing for the purchase price of the land and the cost of building a small clubhouse the Poly still had substantial change left from the compensation plus ownership of a valuable site. This seems to have been conveniently forgotten by those in charge once the Polytechnic was superseded by the "business principled" University. Perhaps Mr Kelleher would like to clarify to the community he serves what became of the balance of the compensation money all those years ago? I would suggest that allowing for inflation and a moderate rate of interest for the period the monies have been with the Poly/University the value of this surplus if returned to the Boat Club would go quite a way to purchasing the land under dispute, now that the University have withdrawn this from use for educational purposes.

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