Gobbins project under scrutiny by auditors

Gobbins project under scrutiny by auditors

The £7.5m Gobbins cliff path is to receive additional attention from the NI Audit Office during this year’s annual inspection of accounts at Mid and East Antrim Borough Council.

The vaunted tourist attraction has only been open to the public for six of the 19 months since its inception in August 2015. A landslip forced the closure of the dramatic pathway just five months after it opened. It opened for a short period in May last year, but was closed again in mid-June and is not now expected to re-open until the end of June this year.

The council has said that until February this year, it had spent about half-a-million pounds on maintenance of the troubled attraction and that around £2m in total has been earmarked for its upkeep.

The council’s books were last inspected by the auditors in August/September last year, during which time five areas of expenditure relating to The Gobbins project were identified for ‘detailed testing. No issues were identified by the NIAO on that occasion, and while it has refused to reveal what those areas of expenditure were, it has said that it will be examining The Gobbins initiative in more detail than normal during this year’s audit.

In reply, East Antrim MLA Gordon Lyons said recently that he felt it was important for people to have confidence when public money was at stake:

“I look forward to the necessary work being done quickly so that The Gobbins can open and enhance the tourism potential of the wider east Antrim area,” he added.