The UK Government Minister for Housing and Homelessness, Felicity Buchan, visited the Women’s Aid centre in Newry on Thursday, which is being regenerated with vital government funding.
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00:00Well it's been great to come to Newry as a levelling up minister. Here today we are
00:07seeing a fantastic Women's Aid project which we have invested £350,000 in. I've been
00:16so impressed by the people whom I have met, the innovation and they're going to create
00:23a centre in the basement which is specifically focused on helping the children who are also
00:29victims of domestic abuse. But it's not only this project in Newry I've been to today,
00:36I've also visited Cammerloch where we are investing £2.8 million in new facilities
00:45on the lake. I was hearing about the triathlon there which sounds absolutely amazing and
00:51more than 600 contestants last year and that's going to be very important and also providing
00:58the road access to the lake also and the pictures look fabulous. And then I visited
01:04another community ownership fund in Kilcoo and that was the local community coming together
01:13to buy the church house and hall and they've got great plans for that. Actually this district
01:21has been the beneficiary of six community ownership funds and if you look at Northern
01:28Ireland as a whole it's been the beneficiary of £8 million which is disproportionate to
01:34the per capita share and if you look at the money that my department is spending on levelling
01:41up in Northern Ireland it's £435 million. But what is very important it's not simply
01:49a matter of us coming here to write cheques from the UK government we really want to work
01:55in partnership with some of the great projects being done for communities and I've been so
02:01impressed with everything that I've seen. Well actually I'm a minister in the department
02:07of levelling up housing and communities so it's integral to my purpose in life and I've
02:14spent time in Northern Ireland in the past and one thing I always find when I come to
02:19Northern Ireland is the strength of the community and the friendliness of people. We got slightly
02:25lost on the way to one of the projects and a taxi driver stopped to say do you need help.
02:32I don't think we would find that in London. Well the plans for the building are fantastic
02:38especially the new services that they will offer for children and young people I'm very
02:43impressed with that but there is clearly a need here. Sadly there is domestic violence
02:50and clearly we want to prevent that domestic violence from occurring in the first instance
02:56but if it does occur we want to make sure that we provide all of the support that we
03:03can. Now domestic violence is a devolved matter but we're doing this as central government
03:11through the community ownership fund.