Budget increase for Derry's bus shelters

The annual budget for the building and maintenance of bus shelters in Derry is to be doubled in an effort to get more people to use public transport and stamp out vandalism.

The move was approved at a meeting of Derry City and Strabane District Council’s Environment and Regeneration Committee held in the Guildhall.

The meeting was told that there are currently 232 bus shelters across Derry and Strabane, 135 of which are provided by the council, with 97 provided by a Clearchannel/Adshell, whose contract with the council expired at the end of last year.

The meeting heard that discussions have taken place with Clearchannel regarding the renewal of their current contract

Commenting, Frank McGuinness, Head of Capital Projects and Building with the council, said that while the bulk of the bus shelters provided by council were ‘mostly older stock of fabricated shelters’ He added that there was a budget of £16,000 to maintain these shelters - £10,000 for the former Derry City Council area and £6,000 for Strabane.

Mr McGuinness continued that the demand for new and replacement shelters exceeded the budget available for the council area, and asked councillors to support an increase the annual budget to £30,000, if they wished to see an increase in the provision of new bus shelters in the new council area.

He said that an ‘objective criteria’ would be applied as to where the new shelters would be located.

The committee chair, SDLP councillor Brian Tierney, welcomed the move, but also criticised the lack of effort being made to curb the vandalism of shelters.

“We need more bus shelters, but we are told that they are magnets for anti-social behaviour,” Cllr Tierney said.

“But they are also magnets for people using public transport, and if we are promoting public transport, then we need to providing facilities where people can wait on public transport.”

His comments were echoed by the Sinn Fein councillor Tony Hassan who added that council needed to take measure to cut down on the vandalism of bus shelters, adding that council should also seek further funding from Translink for new bus shelters.

The DUP’s Maurice Devenney also supported the move.