A local councillor and businessman has said that Fermanagh and Omagh needs more investment in jobs and capital to transform business in the area.

Councillor David Mahon Jnr, who serves as a Democratic Unionist Party Councillor for the Erne North DEA, said that if more businesses invest in Fermanagh with capital buildings, it will have a “massive difference” on the ratepayers in the district.

He said: “What Fermanagh and Omagh needs is more properties, as the rate base is too small.

“If a new office block, factory or a new warehouse opened, they would pay new rates, so they would be adding to the rate base, which would take the burden off the existing ones.”

Rationale

Explaining the rationale behind this, Councillor Mahon continued: “At the moment, when they strike the rate in the Council, they divide it based on the domestic properties and the non-domestic [properties] and then depending on how much money the Council needs to do its job, then it’s divided up.

“But if there are more people to divide it through, that leaves less [to pay] for everybody.”

He signalled that ratepayers should see this in the next number of years when new premises open.

“If some company comes in and sets up a new office or new retail, like the Lakelands Retail Park, that will bring the Council hundreds of thousands of [pounds of] rates alone from that one development.”

Councillor Mahon passed a Motion during the full Council meeting at the beginning of this month to establish a working group focused on economic and inward investment in the Fermanagh and Omagh District Council area.

He made the proposals as he called for the immediate need to address the lack of economic growth within the district.

The Motion passed with slight amendments from Sinn Féin councillors.

When asked what he would like to see this working group tackle, Councillor Mahon said: “I am pushing in my terms to get more businesses in the area paying rates, which would reduce the burden then.

“Since I left the Council in 2019, the Council’s budget has gone off £10 million. Why? The price of electricity, the price of fuel, the living wage went up, a lot of things increased in those years. That money can only come from the ratepayer.”

When asked what businesses should the Council and other bodies target, Councillor Mahon said: “Tourism is a big thing here, and we are well geared to it already and we can easily build on that aspect. Offices are going out more than coming in, but office space is good for generating rates.

“I believe more companies should be made come to the West or be helped to get some support, whether it’s rate support, capital tax support, and encourage them out of Belfast.

“There are a lot of people leaving Fermanagh and Omagh to work in Portadown or Belfast to get a good job, and you can’t blame them,” he said.

“The rates are being generated in the east instead of the west.”

Councillor Mahon praised businesses in the area and the skillset and vision of people who live in Fermanagh.

‘Great workers’

“The people here are great workers, well educated, there is no reason they can’t set up here,

“They’ve got a good skill base [in] South West College, the groundwork is done. We just need the extra push to get up and get out there and sell ourselves.

“If you look in Enniskillen here, it is a busy spot.”

The DUP councillor has expanded his own business with The Outlet moving from the former T.P. Toppings site to the former Topshop site at Enniskillen High Street to make way for the proposed McDonald’s drive-thru and the recent purchase of Flynn Flooring to grow the bathroom, radiators part of the business with an expansion into flooring and tiles.

Hinting toward a busier High Street this Christmas, Councillor Mahon said: “Almost all the retail units in Enniskillen are now taken, or they will be by Christmas.

“If you take the time and look, you will see they are in the process of being refurbished or waiting for planning permission for change of use. There will be very little free or vacant retail space in Enniskillen very shortly.”

As an elected representative for the DUP, Councillor Mahon was asked if he thinks a return to Stormont would be beneficial for making some of his plans come to fruition and attract investment to the West.

He said: “A functioning Executive is what is best for Northern Ireland, and that’s what we want to achieve and something we are working towards – but not at any cost.

“There was a recent Investment Summit in Belfast, where there were 1,000 jobs announced, none of them for the West.

“Even when there is no Executive, jobs seem to be able to come to Northern Ireland anyway.

“I wouldn’t like to put the blame solely on that [lack of an Executive].”