At the end of September we headed to the North West to take part in a busy schedule of visits and briefings.  The two day programme included a seminar on public procurement, a briefing from Ilex on its current and future plans for the urban regeneration of Derry ~ Londonderry and a visit to the new Regeneration Bridge and the former military site at Ebrington.

Thursday 29 September and first stop is Magee College, where Deirdre Heenan from the University of Ulster and Sinead McLaughlin from the local Chamber of Commerce hosted a Seminar on public procurement in the public sector. This informative event brought together a number of key professionals in public procurement and included a presentation from John Gibson, Head of Procurement at the NI Assembly on some of the current procurement challenges for businesses. Norah Anne Barron, Managing Director of PI Communications shared her experiences of public procurement, while Darren Richardson from Core Consultants delivered a presentation on procurement in Derry City Council.

Day two of the visit and we arrive at Ilex the urban regeneration company, where Chief Executive, Aideen McGinley gave an interesting presentation on local Regeneration Projects and the company’s plans for further regeneration throughout the City.

A visit to the Peace Bridge gave us the opportunity to see regeneration in action. The impressive structure, which redefines the local cityscape provides both pedestrian and cycle access from the Cityside to the redeveloped Ebrington Site. The former military site at Ebrington, when completed will provide a mix of housing, commercial and retail space.

At Ebrington – we caught up with Andrew Potter, Business Development Manager with City of Culture. Andrew delivered an overview on the work of the organisation and some of the exciting plans in store in the run up to 2013.