Foreword from Belfast’s Community Planning and city partners
Belfast will be a city re-imagined and resurgent. A great place to live and work for everyone.
First published in 2017 and refreshed in 2024, our community plan, The Belfast Agenda, sets out our shared vision for the city we hope to see in 2035.
This fourth Statement of Progress covers November 2023 to November 2025 and reports on our collective progress towards realising the long-term ambitions, outcomes and actions we have agreed in partnership with our residents and statutory and non-statutory partners in Belfast.
It’s a hugely ambitious body of work which requires the active and coordinated participation of many diverse organisations and individuals across many sectors to deliver, the efforts of which are demonstrated here.
Supported by the Belfast Community Planning Partnership (CPP) comprising public, community and voluntary and business sector partners, we’ve navigated through challenging circumstances to deliver real improvements for our all our citizens, particularly those who are most vulnerable. This has required new thinking in terms of collaborative planning, financing, data collection, performance management and delivery at a city and neighbourhood level, all of which we continue to develop to deliver better outcomes for people who live, work or invest here.
This Statement of Progress highlights significant partnership successes, such as tackling homelessness, vulnerability and poverty, delivering over 850 new social homes, establishing a Bolder Vision for city revitalisation, and the Belfast Business Promise engaging 68 organisations committed to adopting ethical practices such as the living wage. These efforts are underpinned by our commitment to a compassionate city: welcoming, caring, fair, and inclusive, where no one is left behind.
We are proud of our collective achievements, such as securing £230 million for innovation centres of excellence through Belfast Region City Deal, launching Go Succeed for enterprise support, and completing landmark projects like Belfast Grand Central Station, but recognise much remains to be done to realise the full scale of our ambition.
As we focus on achieving our bold ambitions, outcomes and strategic priorities, this Statement of Progress, alongside the supplementary Data Insight Report (link opens in new window), charts our journey and will help inform future priorities. Together, we’ll continue building a confident, inclusive and prosperous Belfast for everyone.
