Fort George park may be unfinished by 2015

A MOOTED science park at Fort George may still be unfinished by 2015, it has emerged.
By The Newsroom
Published 26th Apr 2012, 19:08 BST

Social Development Minister Nelson McCausland revealed he is budgeting for expenditure on the Ilex flagship project up until 2015.

Last week the Sentinel reported how the multimillion pound decontamination of Fort George has been delayed by many months - until January 2013 at the earliest.

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This year DSD has set aside £3.15m for cleaning up the former army base. Next year it will spend £2m on cleaning it up and improving infrastructure. And in 2014/15 it will spend £2m on improving infrastructure.

The contract for cleaning up the former Army Base - the proposed site of a new jobs-boosting Science Park - won’t be advertised until September.

It was previously hoped the job would be finished by June 2012. Now tenders won’t even be returned until January next year.

The huge delay follows a warning - reported in the Sentinel - that delays in the process of funding applications for projects like the Fort George Science Park could result in major opportunities going up in smoke.

Last year former Social Development Minister Alex Attwood said that decontamination work was expected to begin in the middle of 2011 and was expected to complete by June 2012.