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"Fri, May 01 2026, 15:54:25 GMT-4" [ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, [4] ]

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Date Posted: 09:28:55 01/08/04 Thu
Author: University Ulster Coleraine
Subject: Re: University of Ulster at Jordanstown Political bias allegations
In reply to: springvale supporter 's message, "Re: University of Ulster at Jordanstown Political bias allegations" on 06:01:53 01/06/04 Tue

(Note This estate is close to the University of Ulster Campus in Coleraine)



Notorious Estate Tries to Shed its Image of a Ghost Town

Jan 8 2004


BBC TV NI

By Kate Cooney



"I WANT to see the estate get better... but I would still move out if I got the chance."




That was the bleak picture of life on a notorious Coleraine estate painted by one resident who is forced to live beside streets of empty, vandalised houses.

The mother of one, who did not want to be named, has lived on the Ballysally estate for seven years.

She said: ''There are only three houses left in my street with people living in them. The place is getting very run down.

"I had friends and relatives over from Scotland recently and it was quite embarrassing with the way the estate looks.

"Even where the Housing Executive has knocked some houses down they have left the space to get overgrown.

"The empty houses need to be let a lot quicker, there are a lot of people looking for housing in this area.

"If they are left they get vandalised and the area starts to look even more run down. It's true the estate has a stigma about it.

"There's been a lot of deterioration during the last seven years since I've moved here. A lot of people have moved out, and we've lost good neighbours ourselves. If I got the chance I would take another house.''

But the woman added: ''There's a great community spirit around the estate. Ballysally does have a lot to offer people.

"There's a lot of good work going on. If the houses were occupied then people would be able to see what's going on in the community.''

The young mother says the answer is to encourage families onto the estate, step up police patrols in the area to make residents feel safer and persuade the Housing Executive to work on improving the Ballysally environment.

The staunchly loyalist estate has gained notoriety in recent years when 11-year-old Charlene Daly was shot in the back as gunmen sprayed her home with bullets in August 2000.

And, in 2001, father-of-four John McCormick was shot dead at his Ballysally home in front of his wife and children by UDA gunmen.

Coleraine SDLP councillor John Dallat blames many of Ballysally's problems on the lack of planning in the 1970s when it was built, but says the presence of paramilitary elements have further blighted the area.

He said: ''The estate was poorly planned, without amenities or support services. It was, in reality, plucked out of a 'pattern book' of design being used in large urban areas of England.

"This is not to say that Ballysally hasn't a future, it has, but the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and the PSNI in particular must make territorial claim and decommission all the trappings of loyalist violence so that people from all backgrounds may feel comfortable living in it.

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