Palmerston Residents Association Says the Campaign Goes on to save The Den at Station Road Belfast Northern Ireland the Home of Gustav Wilhelm Wolff

The Palmerston Residents Association can confirm it received a letter from the Director of Built Heritage within the Environment and Heritage Service (EHS) today 26th February 2008 confirming he had received our letter to the First and Deputy First Ministers Office at the Northern Ireland Assembly.

He had noted our concerns that the buildings should be saved and made part of the wider Titanic project and for the history of shipbuilding in East Belfast, he also noted that we requested it to be brought under the control of the City Council  he also noted we suggested  that Wolff and Smiles should be remembered in some way at the site of the two homes.

He understands that we have already been in contact with the Historic Buildings Unit in the Directorate Seeking Spot Listing of the buildings. He confirmed the Current position is that they are carrying out research to establish if they meet the Legislative test for listing,ie that they are of special architectural or historic interest. He also confirmed that the Principal Architect was now gathering information and he would write to the Association with his decision.

 

The  Palmerston Residents Association feels that the Heritage service are dragging their heels on this issue and feel that some sort of spot listing should take place to safe guard the cottages until a decision is reached by the Department we are seeing our Heritage under threat with regards to the Departments action we feel they should act quickly to remove any threat to them in the meantime we ask them to rethink the issue of spot listing once more