Briege Arthurs

Briege Arthurs has a background in community regeneration for both private and public sector. She has worked for Sir Stuart Lipton on the Broadgate and Stockley Park developments in London setting up Training and Enterprise Councils and negotiating planning gain for community benefit. Upon her return to Northern Ireland in 1991 she joined the Government’s Making Belfast Work Regeneration Initiative working in the North and West of the city. In 1996 she joined the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS) who act as an advocate for 491 schools in Northern Ireland with the primary objective of raising standards in Catholic maintained schools. During this time she has led the sector in the development of the Community use of the schools sites and has chaired regional and inter sectoral ministerial working groups in this area.

Briege is the Chief Executive Officer of Forward South Partnership. In this role she is privileged to work with the community and voluntary sectors of South Belfast in the regeneration of their area. South Belfast has 2 specific areas of disadvantage; Inner South which is predominantly nationalist, South West predominantly loyalist.

She is passionate about community development and building collaborations between the community, public and private sectors to get the best outcomes for people. Briege is currently co-chair of the Living Here Board which is one of the workstreams of the Belfast Agenda, community plan for the city. She also sits on the BCC Shared City Partnership  whose focus is on good relations in sharing our city along with sitting on the Community Planning Partnership itself inputting on behalf of community and voluntary sector. Briege is a member of the Executive committee of NICVA and sits on the Senate of Queen’s University Belfast.