Tourism boss heads bid to revamp Derry

A man who once quit the Northern Ireland Tourist Board will help front a new Government bid to transform Derry, it emerged tonight.

Professor Eddie Friel has been appointed to the Ilex Urban Regeneration Company’s board as it seeks to deliver a major social and economic boost to the north-west region.

Prof Friel, chief executive of Greater Glasgow Tourist Board, comes from Derry.

He stood down as NITB boss 13 years ago just months after taking one of the top tourism posts in Belfast.

But now Prof Friel and other board members, including top Derry hotelier Garvan O’Doherty and University of Ulster Vice-Chancellor Professor Gerry McKenna, have been told to have a strategy in place by next April.

Their goal is to revamp a city where the latest monthly unemployment figures revealed a rise to more than 3,700 people out of work and claiming benefits.

The area has also been hit hard by a lack of investment.

A powerful lobby group of businessmen and politicians bidding to bring Northern Ireland’s new police training college to Derry claim it would provide a desperately needed jobs boost.

Ilex was set up as part of a major reinvestment initiative announced by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Chancellor Gordon Brown to tackle infrastructure deficits across Northern Ireland.

With the First and Deputy First Ministers’ Office and the Department for Social Development heavily involved in the plans before the Stormont administration collapsed, the company was tasked with regenerating Derry and its council area.

Ian Pearson, Economic Policy Minister at the Northern Ireland Office, claimed Ilex’s board members’ proven track record would deliver success.

“The transformation of the city and the wider region will take a decade or more,” he said.

“The first step is to ensure that there is a strategy to follow and that it is agreed with all of the statutory agencies.

“I have asked the company to make sure that this plan is in place and work under way to implement it by next April.

“This is a demanding timescale, but I have every confidence in this talented board and I wish the company every success.”