City Quays Gardens
City Quays Gardens is a public space within the wider regeneration of the 2,000-acre Belfast Harbour area. The Gardens front the historic Harbour Offices, incorporating green space, planted areas, flexible event areas, gathering spaces and civic artworks that together create a unique sense of place out of what was once an underused car park.
When built, City Quays Gardens (CQG) will be the first public realm project to receive One Planet Living recognition. It will also be the first One Planet Living Leader in Northern Ireland.
The project is an exemplar in creative placemaking, and the ambitions in its action plan are comprehensive across all 10 One Planet Living principles.
Culture and community
CQG is particularly strong on the Culture & Community principle. The design has been led by landscape architects, Gillespie, and creates an imaginative new place to gather, to relax and with flexible spaces for events.
Materials and products
The new park will celebrate the harbour’s considerable heritage by transforming the area around the listed harbour building. The design allows for salvaging, refurbishing and reinstating the historic harbour railings to their original location whilst also restoring and reusing the existing granite cobbles.
Land and nature
The choice to use this brownfield site location, where an underused car park is being restored to both nature and public realm, was a conscious land use decision by Belfast Harbour in preference to developing two office block developments.
Zero carbon energy
CQG will be zero carbon in operation, using energy efficiency best practice, REGO certified renewable procurement in the short term and an on-site solar PV array by 2026
One Planet Living is our vision of a world where we can live happily within the Earth’s resources, and a straightforward framework to achieve this
Find out more
Our ‘Port for Everyone’ vision is to develop an iconic waterfront for the city. With our strong focus on biodiversity, we believe that the new Gardens will contribute to Belfast Harbour’s sustainability goal of reaching net-zero carbon by 2030 and enhance the wellbeing of local communities and visitors alike.
Joe O’Neill, Chief Executive of Belfast Harbour
One Planet Living action plan
Leadership review
