14 June 2005
£3M DEVELOPMENT REVITALISES LIMAVADY
Limavady has received a much needed boost following the £3m transformation of Roe Valley Hospital into a new community complex. Amenities offered by the grade B+ listed former workhouse include day care for older people and people with disabilities, a playgroup, after school club, an employment and benefits advice centre and debt counselling service. The site also includes 3,800 square metres of office space and four new apartments for vulnerable people.
Opening the new centre, the Minister for Social Development, David Hanson MP said: “Local communities are the users of future services and facilities, the customers and employees of future enterprises, the owners and occupiers of new homes as well as enjoying the physical improvements to their environment. They are central to the success of regeneration initiatives as they can help to identify what their needs are.
The Roe Valley Community Complex has already surpassed all expectations, stimulating the local economy and creating jobs in a disadvantaged area. This fine historic building has been refurbished with appropriate care and sensitivity. It also now employs 134 people and provides the Limavady Community Development Initiative (LCDI) with an annual income of £200k.”
Congratulating LCDI, Mr Hanson continued: “A project on this scale was without doubt a huge undertaking. There is, therefore, an understandable sense of achievement and pride in what people have achieved.They have gained new skills and experience, revived their own community and made it a more attractive place in which to live, work and invest.”
Speaking at the official opening, International Fund for Ireland Chairman Denis Rooney said: "This is an excellent project which has restored a prominent listed building with a rich architectural and historical significance. It provides facilities for services which might well have gone elsewhere and provides jobs for local people while making a significant improvement to the environment. It is fitting that the building will continue, as it has done for more than 160 years, to serve the community in the Roe Valley."
Notes to Editors:
- Roe Valley Hospital was designed by English architect George Wilkinson who was also responsible for creating workhouses all over Ireland. The first inmates entered the building in 1842. The Workhouse became the Limavady District Hospital in 1933. It was closed in 1998 with the exception of an outpatients department. An Interpretative Centre is being created in the Gate Lodge so that visitors can discover the original context of the buildings and their historical significance.
A community audit of the two disadvantaged wards of Coolessan and Benevenagh, carried out in 1998, confirmed the need for a regeneration initiative in the area, with 80% of respondents supporting a multi-functional community facility. Limavady Borough has a total population of 32,000, 12,500 of whom live in the district’s town. The Townsend Index which ranked Limavady as the 3rd most deprived district in Northern Ireland behind Strabane and Derry, while the Robson Study ranked Limavady as the 11th most deprived area. Limavady Community Development Initiative is a cross-community voluntary organisation which was launched in 1987. Limavady Community Complex received funding from a number of sources including: Heritage Lottery Fund £1,084,000 DSD/IFI £790,852
LCDI £300,000
Limavady Borough Council : £200,000
Environment and Heritage Service £173,800
The tenants of the Hospital include Altnagelvin Hospital Trust, Foyle Health and Social services, NI Ambulance Service, Environmental Health service, Environment and Heritage Service, Benbradagh Resource Centre.
For media enquiries please contact Dara Cosgrove on 028 9082 9078.
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