Residents object to Chinese centre

Anna Lo said it was the fourth time that plans could be blocked

Plans to build a Chinese community resource centre in south Belfast may have to be reconsidered because of objections from local residents.

The Chinese Welfare Association received £233,000 in lottery funding to build a new centre in the Donegall Pass area, incorporating a 12-place nursery.

But Chief Executive Anna Lo said on Tuesday that it was the fourth time that plans for such a centre may have to be dropped.

"When are we going to be accepted? We have a third generation now, being born and brought up here," she said.

"We have stuck with the wider community throughout the Troubles, and now when peace comes, we are being kicked around.

"We are being told we are not allowed to build here and there, because this is their place and we are not allowed to go in."

Racist leaflets

Last March, loyalist paramilitaries were suspected of being behind racist leaflets circulated in the Donegall Pass area.

The leaflet claimed that the number of Chinese people living and working in the area "undermines the community's Britishness".

DUP councillor Ruth Patterson said another site should be considered

The funding was part of more than £850,000 of lottery cash being allocated to help transform childcare facilities across Northern Ireland.

The Big Lottery Fund, which distributes money for the National Lottery, announced recipients of 12 separate grants on Tuesday.

Projects in Belfast, Londonderry, Fermanagh and Coleraine secured cash in the latest round of awards which were developed in conjunction with childcare partnerships.

Ms Lo said she hoped the centre planned by her association would accommodate staff and services, including a luncheon club for elderly Chinese people, on one single site.

She said the centre would not be exclusively for the use of the Chinese community.

"A large part of what we will be doing is working with the wider community, promoting mutual understanding and community relations," she said.

"A lot of Chinese children coming from home into a playgroup for the first time have very little English. By putting all of them together we will be able to address the specific need for intensive English language teaching."

DUP councillor Ruth Patterson, who has been liaising between ethnic minorities and local residents, said the association should consider a different site.

The association's plans may have to be reconsidered

"The Protestant community living in Donegall Pass have grave concerns about their culture, their identity and way of life being slowly taken away from them," she said.

"The very fact that a Chinese community centre being built on their doorstep, when there is a Belfast City Council community centre a matter of yards away, would be detrimental."

Ms Patterson said she personally believed a Chinese centre would not diminish loyalist culture.

However, she added: "When you live in Donegall Pass with all the problems in that area on your doorstep, it's a very different matter."