What the new DARD HQ will look like in Ballykelly. Or will it now?
THE majority of staff at the headquarters of a key government department do not want to move to a new base in Co Derry, the assembly was told today.
Agriculture Minister Michelle McIlveen said the “majority of current headquarter staff don’t want to relocate” to the proposed new building at Ballykelly.
The plans were for the new Agriculture HQ were unveiled in April last year by the then Sinn Fein Agriculture Michelle O’Neill.
She said at the time that DARD has “identified more than 1,500 civil servants who would want to move to Ballykelly”.
Ms O’Neill unveiled an artist’s impression of the new HQ building on the same day that her department submitted the planning application to the Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council.
“Today is a key milestone in realising the £20m vision we see for DARD and the potential positive impact this move will have for the north west,” the minister said last April.
She added that work will soon begin to match civil servants who have expressed an interest in working in Ballykelly to jobs in the new building.
Agriculture Minister Michelle O’Neill unveiling the new DARD plans for Ballykelly in April 2015
“The level of interest in this location shows the executive has got it right when it comes to decentralising jobs,” Ms O’Neill said.
About 700 DARD posts are due to be relocated to the new site, at the former Shackleton army barracks, over the next five years.
The jobs will be decentralised in two stages, with approximately 350 staff taking up position in Ballykelly in 2017 and the remainder moving by 2020.
But that now looks unlikely after today’s statement to the Assembly by DUP Minister Michelle McIlveen.
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