Belfast City Deal project costings exceed expectations

It has the hopes of creating 7,000 jobs and is the largest single investment in the region with the potential to add 210 m a year to the area's economy.

Mr Kelpie said progressing other major projects such as university expansion and infrastructural projects in parallel with the city deal was always considered important, but inflationary costs were an issue.

DUP cllr Maurice Devenney said that the costings were now a lot larger than expected and asked what those involved in the Belfast City Deal are doing to balance their books around budgets. SDLP cllr Brian Tierney said that it is not fair that the council and the citizens of this district have to carry the can because the prices go up. If there are problems financially, all of the partners have to come together to deal with these issues.

The only way we can sort them out is by re-jigging the projects. The British government has to meet the inflationary costs when responding to the inflationary costs. It stated that the cost estimates for almost all of the projects envisaged at Strategic Outline Case stage are currently projected to be very much in excess of the available funding. The report suggested solutions will include a range of considerations such as a reduction in complexity to some of the projects, mitigation of site specific issues highlighted by initial design development that have resulted in increased cost projections, adjustments to design and specifications and application of additional budget if possible by individual project partners.