National Trust submits new plan for £21m Causeway visitor centre

THE BRITISH National Trust has submitted a new planning application for a £21 million visitor centre at the Giant's Causeway in north Antrim, for what is Northern Ireland's biggest tourist attraction.

Plans to rebuild the visitor centre, which was destroyed by fire in 2000, have been bogged down in controversy, with the National Trust and north Antrim businessman Seymour Sweeney vying with each other to develop the world heritage site, which attracts 400,000 visitors each year.

In January this year the former DUP minister for the environment, Arlene Foster, rejected the application from Mr Sweeney after previously saying she was "minded" to endorse his plans for the Giant's Causeway.

Controversy surrounded Mr Sweeney's proposal to develop a private visitor centre after it emerged that he was a DUP member and that he was a friend of former first minister the Rev Ian Paisley and his son, Ian jnr, who had lobbied the British government to support the bid.

Ms Foster's initial qualified support for Mr Sweeney's application last year led to fellow DUP minister Nigel Dodds suspending a £21 million plan for a publicly owned visitor centre.

That plan was based on an international award-winning design by Roisin Heneghan of Heneghan Peng architects in Dublin. But now, in this latest development, a very slightly modified version of Ms Heneghan's design has been submitted by the National Trust to the Department of Environment.

The only changes are to some elements of the interior of the building, according to the National Trust.

The proposed visitor centre is designed to blend in with the local landscape, explained the project director, Graham Thompson.

It comprises a glass-roofed building of simple geometric design to reflect the topography of the area. It will have glass and basalt walls to bring in light and to reflect the basalt of the causeway itself.

The building also restores the ridgeline of the cliff overlooking the causeway. The car park is designed to be as unobtrusive as possible.

Cost was one of the factors in Mr Sweeney being initially favoured to develop a private development.

The National Trust, however, is to provide £6 million in funding and believes significant additional non-public funding will be found as well, according to the trust's Northern Ireland director, Hilary McGrady.

Ms McGrady said that subject to planning permission, the National Trust hopes to begin work at the site by the autumn of next year, completing the project by the spring of 2011.