Good to not have to go to the Maze but surely there must be something better than tarting up Windsor Park.
Are we going to get proper car parking - if so, how?

Basil must have taken a liking to the NI fans of late!

Thank god the maze will be scrapped - for rugbys sake as well as football!

We have two events in 2012 that if the political will was there could give us a great National Stadium along side three excellent tourist attractions in museums to both the Titanic and Shipbuilding and our Great Sporting Personalities and a Titanic and Shipbuilding Eco Park.

All this on the shores of Belfast Lough and located in North Belfast at the old Belfast land fill site at Dargan Road, the now named Giant’s Park Belfast. One complex along with Lough side bars and restaurants and a landscaped Eco park, incorporating old Shipyard Cobbled Roads with Tramlines, Gas Lighting (taken from the land fill site) and wind turbines, with the added advantage of Belfast city centre restaurants, bars and shops all within walking distance.
I would like you to imagine visitors to our city sailing up Belfast Lough or flying into George Best Belfast City Airport. One of the visitor’s first views of Belfast would be our new innovative and impressive sports stadium and landscaped Titanic and shipyard themed Eco Park with museums.The events we need to be setting our sites on are the centenary of the sinking of the Belfast made RMS Titanic, and the UK/London Olympics.The Government has stated that all the regions of the UK will not miss out on the befits of the Olympic experience, and only Belfast can claim to be the birth place and original home for the largest man made moving object in the world at the time, RMS Titanic. Here is my out of the box thinking that may not be obvious.With the suggestion of central Government money being made available for new regional Olympic venues, add to this Belfast City Councils money for a rival National Stadium, and the redevelopment of Giant’s Park by Belfast City Council and any national lottery money being made available for the Titanic commemorations put all this money together and make a facility that we all can be proud of and what will be a national and international tourist attraction.
A National Stadium with museums to the Titanic and shipbuilding and our Great Sports Personalities, all at the one location in an Eco Park on the shores of Belfast Lough.The advantages are a National Stadium and Museums near to Belfast City centre. With improved bus links and a possible new rail stop at Fort William, the tourist’s form the increasing number of cruse ships can easily see our new Stadium, as they sail up Belfast Lough and the visitor flying into George Best Airport can view the Stadium as they fly into Belfast, and all the visitors to our country can easily make their way to the Stadium and Museums, as there is a good road infrastructure already in place. We could incorporate the use of the last remaining link to the Titanic, the Nomadic as a visitor attraction. Samson and Goliath the two existing landmark cranes of the Shipyard can be used as a backdrop to the Stadium and Museums.
The Museum to the Titanic and Shipbuilding could feature all the great things from the shipyard that were involved in the building of the Titanic. We could inform the visitor that the Titanic was built in the largest shipyard in the world at that time. Belfast had the world’s largest rope works to service the world’s largest ships. We can incorporate the last of the steam derricks that helped build the Titanic and many of the other great ships from the yard, the dry-docks the tramlines the cobbled roads the gaslights and most importantly of all the thousands of statistics on the building of the Titanic and the stories and yarns form the men and women who help to build the Titanic and the other great ships. Everything Belfast needs to a museum of shipbuilding all in the right place. We could also show the visitor the innovation of the people of Northern Ireland by using Wind Turbines and the Methane Gas from the landfill site to heat and light the Giant’s Park making it an Eco Friendly Facility.The museum to our Sporting greats could feature the late greats, of our one and only George Best, our Golf Open Champion Fred Daly, our Greatest Biker the one and only Joey Dunlop, our World Class Rally Driver Bertie Fisher, our Boxing greats and World Champions of Rinty Monaghan and Barry McGuigan, Rugby Heroes of Willy John McBride and Mike Gibson, Olympian Gold Medallist Mary Peters, and our golden booted footballer Northern Ireland’s David Healy and all the other sporting greats that we have past and present, too many to mention. The proposal I have made would mean that when the stadium was not in use by any of the sporting codes, the museums could pull in the revenue from home grown and foreign tourists to the museums.In my view the issue of building a stadium at the Maze located 4 miles from the nearest city, Lisburn, and 22 miles from Belfast. Makes the transport and roads infrastructure costs associated with that stadium better invested in a package that would be more sustainable over a longer period, and the facility that would be more efficiently used as a combined Stadium and Museum than just a sport Stadium. With Belfast’s shops, bars and restaurants within walking distance, to me it makes the business case for the stadium in Belfast and not the Maze?

Use the Maze site to build affordable homes for the people of Northern Ireland this would be a better use of this land.
The Giant’s park site is owned by Belfast City Council so costs for the land are nil, therefore we need to only find the building costs for the Stadium. The site is on the edge of an industrial area and is within walking distance of Belfast City centre so little disturbance from parking for local residents. The transport infrastructure can be improved to the Stadium by improved bus links from Belfast and the rest of the country, a possible new rail stop at Fort William could help elevate any traffic congestion. The site is also serviced by the M2 motorway and with the new link to the M1 motorway with the new improved west link, traffic congestion should again be kept to a minimum.

So little investment will be required for any roads infrastructure, and just a small investment in a new rail stop at Fort William would be required.

In Conclusion;
An innovative new Sports Stadium, Museum’s, Re-use of a Landfill Site with Eco potential, National and International Tourist attractions promoting Northern Irelands place in the worlds shipbuilding history, and use of our historic existing landmark shipyard cranes. Not forgetting Northern Irelands our world class sporting personalities. A Stadium within walking distance of Belfast City Centre, with an already existing roads infrastructure and a rail line only metres away with possible new rail stop and we seem to have covered all the bases?

Intelligent, well prepared post Ranger.
One small point.
Barry McGuigan is from Clones in the Republic of Ireland.
Allthough i have a great ammount of respect for the man he used Northern Ireland and in some respects the Union Jack as a 'Flag of Convenience' to further his career.
A spoting greats of NI should be confined to just that. Sporting Greats of Northern Ireland?

Thanks for enjoying this article.

Thanks for enjoying this article.
This is awesome, please keep writing.
Good post!As i was passing by here and i read your post.