{"id":2875,"date":"2014-02-02T22:01:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-02T21:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/portaferrytown.com\/blog\/?p=2875"},"modified":"2014-03-10T08:00:22","modified_gmt":"2014-03-10T07:00:22","slug":"explores-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/portaferrytown.com\/blog\/?p=2875","title":{"rendered":"Exploris Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From Friends of Exploris:<em><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Dear friends<\/p>\n<p>As you may have heard, Ards Borough Council decided last Wednesday to delay closure of Exploris by one more month, and to ask Executive departments in Stormont to financially support a new business plan for Exploris.<\/p>\n<p>The new business plan for Exploris has been accepted and praised by the Council; however it is very dependent on capital funding for a major refurbishment, at an estimated cost of \u00a3900,000.<\/p>\n<p>There is a lot of frustration that such funding has not yet been firmly committed, but on a positive note there have been supportive indications from the Department for Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) and also the Department of Environment. (DOE has already committed to fund the costs of the seal sanctuary including refurbishment costs.) The business plan has only been submitted for consideration to those departments in mid-January.<\/p>\n<p>It is important to bear in mind that the decision to &#8220;close and dispose&#8221; still stands, from September. So with no funding uk place by the end of February the Council could then begin to act on that and close Exploris.<\/p>\n<p>The public support for Exploris has been crucial in this process, and your voices have been heard. Everyone now wants to see this finally resolved and a better future for our Exploris aquarium. The fate now lies in the hands of the Executive so please write to your own local MLA to express your support and to Minister Foster in DETI.<\/p>\n<p>Best wishes,<\/p>\n<p>Dr Julia Sigwart<br \/>\nChair, Friends of Exploris Trust<\/p>\n<p>To find your MLA &#8211; http:\/\/www.niassembly.gov.uk\/Your-MLAs\/<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Arlene Foster<br \/>\nEnterprise, Trade &amp; Investment<br \/>\nParliament Buildings,<br \/>\nBallymiscaw,Stormont,<br \/>\nBelfast, BT4 3XX<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Friends of Exploris: Dear friends As you may have heard, Ards Borough Council decided last Wednesday to delay closure of Exploris by one more month, and to ask Executive departments in Stormont to financially support a new business plan &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/portaferrytown.com\/blog\/?p=2875\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gala-2014"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/portaferrytown.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/portaferrytown.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/portaferrytown.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/portaferrytown.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/portaferrytown.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2875"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/portaferrytown.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2897,"href":"http:\/\/portaferrytown.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2875\/revisions\/2897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/portaferrytown.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/portaferrytown.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/portaferrytown.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}