An Update From Maritime Belfast Trust

In February we headed to Medway and Chatham Docks for an insightful best practice visit, connecting with one of the other 15 The National Lottery Heritage Fund Heritage Places. The visit gave us a valuable opportunity to see how a place with strong similarities to Belfast, a former industrial and maritime hub, is embracing heritage to inform future place making from grass roots to policy levels.

Heritage is being safeguarded in both tangible and intangible ways, with the Historic Chatham Dockyards operating as a living heritage destination for visitors, workers and residents alike. We also saw how biodiversity and nature-based initiatives can enhance and sit alongside the historic environment. The visit sparked valuable discussions around future collaboration and shared learning between our Heritage Places. Who knew that Short Brothers started in Medway and then moved to Belfast! One of many connections we hope to build on.

As part of the trip, we took part in a Walking Tour from Rochester to Chatham Intra. This provided a rich, place‑based insight into the area’s layered history and evolving communities. The visit continued with a community heritage session offering valuable perspectives on locally driven heritage activity and the role of community stewardship in shaping future heritage engagement.

Thanks to the Culture Team at Medway Council and the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust for their warm welcome, generous insights, and the inspiring opportunity to learn from their work.

This year marked our 9th annual Local Community Day, delivered in partnership with Titanic Belfast. Through this annual event, we have welcomed more than 5,000 people to the visit Titanic Experience and SS Nomadic for free, and this year alone we were delighted to host over 500 participants from 50 community groups across the city.

Local Community Day remains a cornerstone of our engagement work, ensuring that Belfast’s maritime heritage is accessible to the communities who live closest to it. It is always great to see such a diverse range of groups come together to explore, connect and enjoy the area. We are also looking forward to extending a welcome to the new residents moving into Loft Lines over the Spring and Summer, building and growing our community.

A community group leader’s feedback on Local Community Day “Fantastic day and families who had never experienced the area before really enjoyed it and promised to return. Thank you so much for the opportunity!”

We have been progressing work behind the scenes with the National Lottery Heritage Fund Heritage Places initiative, and we look forward to sharing some exciting updates in the coming weeks and months. Alongside this, we have now formalised arrangements with trusted partners and anchor institutions including the Waterfront Task Group, EastSide Partnership, Sailortown Regeneration, Lower Ormeau Residents Action Group (LORAG – Shaftesbury) and Ulster Wildlife. All primed to support us in delivering Belfast Historic Waterfront. Successful place-shaping relies on collaboration, and we are on a journey to build and strengthen relationships with local organisations and groups who are aligned to our vision.

The Maritime Mile continues to thrive, with over one million trips already recorded by our people counters and we have recently installed three more to further track activity across the waterfront. Making sure the waterfront is a safe and welcoming place for everyone to enjoy is really important to us and with this in mind, through support from St Johns Ambulance and Benenden Health we have installed a life-saving defibrillator on the Titanic Walkway, right beside the Great Light.