Councillor J Palmer Wins Top Spot
Tuesday 08 March 2011
Councillor Jenny Palmer won the ‘Best Initiative by a Councillor’ Award at the recent NILGA Awards event.
Councillor Jenny Palmer won the ‘Best Initiative by a Councillor’ Award at the recent NILGA Awards event. Since April 2009 Councillor Palmer has been the Chairman of Lisburn City Council’s Economic Development Committee.
Under her Chairmanship, the Economic Development Committee funded and delivered the following successful Economic Development Programme of initiatives, which included business competitiveness, tourism development, regeneration, and rural development activities.
These initiatives resulted in the following:
· Business Competitiveness: funded and delivered eight dedicated business support programmes assisting 76 individual projects, achieving £91,000 actual new sales, with over £2.3 million of anticipated new sales achieved.
· Tourism Development: generated £15 million of tourism revenue into the Lisburn economy in 2009.
· City Regeneration: worked on a number of high profile regeneration projects including the launch of the Lisburn City Centre Masterplan in partnership with the Department for Social Development; the £3.1 million Colin Environmental Improvement Scheme and the regeneration of the Lisburn Historic Quarter.
· Rural Development: established the Lagan Rural Partnership which in its short history has approved funding of £1.5 million to a wide range of rural based projects.
Councillor Palmer recognised that it is vital for the Council to play a key role in improving the economic performance of the City especially in the current economic climate by showing real leadership and vision.Through the Council’s Economic Development Programme in terms of business development activity for every £1 spent by the Council, £18.20 of new revenue was generated in the private sector as a result of Council initiatives.
This overall Economic Development Programme was successfully delivered against a backdrop of ever increasing public sector budgetary pressures, maximising the available resources and effectively targeting these to areas where they would provide most benefit of businesses, communities and ratepayers alike.
Councillor Palmer’s dedication to her role in Economic Development will leave a legacy of successful economic development initiatives for the benefit of the local Lisburn economy, and with far reaching impact and results.The innovative and dynamic activity instigated by Councillor Palmer will continue and be adopted into the new Economic Development strategy 2011-2012.