Giant’s Causeway management plan completed

Environment Minister Angela Smith has announced that the management plan for the Giant’s Causeway and Causeway Coast World Heritage Site has been submitted to UNESCO.

The management plan had been requested by UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, following its mission to the Giant’s Causeway in 2003.

It sets out how Government, National Trust, Moyle District Council and others, “will work together to ensure that the interests of the Causeway, its visitors and local residents, are all catered for”.

“Few people in Northern Ireland would dispute that the Giant’s Causeway is a very special place,” the Minister said. “It is the only place in Northern Ireland to receive the global accolade of World Heritage Site. It is also Northern Ireland’s premier tourist attraction and balancing the two, presents its owners and managers with a very considerable challenge.”

In April 2003 the Minister announced that the Environment and Heritage Service would prepare a management plan for the World Heritage Site.

This was coupled with the announcements that there would be an international competition to design new visitor facilities and a tourism master plan for the wider area.

The Giant’s Causeway and Causeway Coast World Heritage Site (WHS) was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1986. It is the only WHS in Northern Ireland and one of only three ‘natural’ sites in the UK.

(MB/SP)