Is Belfast City Council’s policy for dual language street signs “extremist and provocative”?

A column in the News Letter examined changes in Belfast City Council’s processes for erecting dual language street signs. We take a look at how this process has evolved over time and compare this to claims made in the newspaper. Our analysis found several mistakes, or omissions, in the News Letter article.

CLAIM ONE: Belfast’s process for erecting dual language street signs was loosened in 2012, when the need for a two-thirds majority of consultation responses in favour was changed to a simple majority. The process was eased further when the need for explicit support of 15% of a whole street was changed to 15% of households which replied.

RATING: INACCURATE.

CLAIM TWO: When Belfast City Council consults residents about whether their street should have a dual language sign, only 15% of responses have to be positive for an application to proceed.

RATING: INACCURATE.

CLAIM THREE: The council is “hiding” behind its discretionary powers on erecting dual language signage to “pretend” it has robust systems to take due consideration of residents’ views.

RATING: INACCURATE WITH CONSIDERATION.

On 17 November, News Letter Editor Ben Lowry wrote a column examining Belfast City Council’s processes for erecting dual language street signs. It claimed:

“For a quarter of a century Belfast has had generous provision for the miniscule demand for Irish signage. In 1998 it adopted a sensible policy that any resident could apply for a dual language sign in their street provided it was backed by least [sic] a third of the street’s residents. The bid would then be approved by the council if, after a consultation, it was supported by two thirds of the street’s residents…

“But this fair and moderate policy did not bring about the republican goal of Irish signs all over the city. So, in 2012, the two thirds consultation majority was dropped to a bare majority…

“However, even the 2012 loosening of the dual language (ie Gaelic) threshold to 50% did not have the result that Irish republicans wanted… Slashing the threshold for support for dual signage in Belfast from two thirds, which was too high for republicans to achieve their aims, to a majority, was still too high. Now it has been cut to 15%.

“But the new policy does not merely have an outrageously low threshold, it also requires only one resident to request a dual signage (equal Gaelic and English). If none does, an elected representative for the electoral area can do so, or a developer. Then it goes to consultation needing only 15% support in the street. But the policy has been diluted even more than that threshold implies – the minimum 15% support no longer applies to the whole street, but only to the percentage of households who have replied.

“The new policy means that a Sinn Fein councillor who represents a mixed electoral area can apply for Gaelic in a street of 40 people, and, if only 20 people reply to the consultation and a mere 15% of that number support it – three people – [it] will pass.

“The council is hiding behind a discretion it has to turn down dual signage to pretend that there is a robust system to prevent Irish signage in such circumstances, but I predict that it will be of minimal effect.”

Is this a fair outline of the process? In particular, are the following assertions true?

1. In 2012, the need for a two thirds majority to support dual language signage was dropped in favour of a simple majority.
2. Is the explicit support of only 15% of respondents to the council’s consultation needed for an application to meet the threshold to proceed?
3. Is the council just pretending that it has a robust system of discretion which can prevent the erection of unwanted signs?

Claim one is inaccurate. In 2012, the council considered reducing the required majority but this move was rejected. The News Letter corrected this error in the online version of the article days after it was first published, although the original published version contained the error as quoted above.

Claim two is also inaccurate. The council’s policy states that if “15 per cent or more of occupants within a street or road want to have a dual language sign, we will provide a report to the People and Communities Committee” – i.e. the application can proceed to the next stage.

There could be some ambiguity in this wording, however FactCheckNI asked Belfast City Council to clarify what the threshold means. The council told us that this means 15% of residents in total, rather than 15% of respondents to any consultation.

Point three is unfairly made, due to significant omissions. The News Letter’s article says the council is “hiding” behind discretion to “pretend that there is a robust system” – but makes no effort to look at what this system actually is. There is a clear process for discretionary decision making, which we outline below. Whether you think that process is robust is up to you.

The writer also suggests that the policy is “is part of a low-level republican culture war that increasingly has the support of people in the political centre ground and even of some unionists” and that “the new language policy has extremist and provocative intent”.

FactCheckNI contacted the author of the article, and received no response.

The article is an opinion piece. Whether those opinions chime with your reasoning, or not, is entirely up to you, and is not something that can be fact checked.

However, it is important to base your opinions on actual facts. Let’s look in detail at the council’s dual language signage policy and how it has changed – and not changed – at various points since it was first implemented just over 25 years ago, and compare that to the contents of the column.

• Starting point

Belfast City Council’s first policy for the erection of dual language street signs came in 1998.

It allowed any individual to apply for a dual language sign, provided the application was accompanied by a petition supported by at least one third of the residents on the street in question.

The application could later be approved by council if the proposed signage was supported by two thirds of the street’s residents during a subsequent consultation.

According to council documents, the consultation exercise that followed receipt of a valid petition for dual language signage involved canvassing households in the street to request their views. If “two thirds or more of the occupiers appearing on the Electoral Register” said they were in favour, a dual language sign would be erected.

This policy had some further qualifications. On “long streets” where the majority opinion on whether to have signs in a second language might differ between certain stretches of the street, consideration would be given to putting up signs in parts where the required majority said they wanted a dual language sign.

• Proposals

In 2007, the council carried out a one-year pilot allowing applications to be submitted by a local elected representative without a petition. However, after an assessment it was found that applications submitted with a petition were more likely to be successful, so the original policy was ultimately retained.

In 2009, a new Street Naming and Buildings Number Policy was approved by the council.

Broadly, this did not change the system for erecting dual language street signs. Indeed, that 1998 system was reaffirmed and incorporated into the document outlining the new broader signage and numbering policy.

According to the new naming and numbering policy:

“For new street names, changes of street names, major re-numbering, and erection of dual-language street name plates the matter will be considered by the Council’s Health and Environmental Services Committee whose decision will be subject to approval at a subsequent council meeting. If an application is not approved it will be referred back to the applicant for alternative suggestions.”

In 2012, the council considered some amendments to this policy. Proposals included changing how consultation responses were counted and reducing the threshold for support from two thirds down to a simple majority.

All these changes were rejected and the existing policy was affirmed. This amounted to an error made in Mr Lowry’s original column, which originally claimed before correction that:

“[In] 2012, the two thirds consultation majority was dropped to a bare majority.”

A 2014 High Court ruling found that Belfast City Council’s process for erecting dual language signage was lawful and that the council had residual discretion on all decisions.

In 2020, several significant reforms to the policy were considered. Ultimately, a new system for erecting dual language signage was ratified by Belfast City Council on 7 January 2021. The draft new policy was the put out for consultation with an Equality Impact Assessment document (EQIA).

The final report on that EQIA was published in April 2022 and concluded:

“While the consultation has revealed a lack of consensus with regard to the proposed changes to the policy, and indeed has identified a strong division of opinion, there is nothing inherent in the feedback received to suggest that, at this time, the proposed changes should not now be adopted – but on the understanding that the policy should be subject to rigorous review after a period of two years.”

• The latest changes

Belfast City Council’s most recent system for erecting dual language street signs is outlined on the council website, which says:

• An occupier of the street who is registered on the electoral roll, an elected member who represents that District Electoral Area or a developer can request a dual language street sign.
• When we receive an application request for a dual language sign, this will undergo an initial assessment before being considered for a survey of occupants registered on the electoral roll.
• If 15 per cent or more of occupants within a street or road want to have a dual language sign, we will provide a report to the People and Communities Committee.
• If an occupier does not respond to our survey, the non-reply will not be considered to be against the application.
• If the People and Communities Committee approve the request for a dual language street sign, we will put it forward for approval at the monthly council meeting.
• If the request is approved at the monthly council meeting we will arrange to have a sign manufactured and erected.

The current version of Mr Lowry’s News Letter column explains the policy in this manner (the original article was very similar, his error as detailed above excepted):

“Cutting the threshold for support for dual signage in Belfast from two thirds to a majority would still have been too high for republicans to achieve their aims, so now it has been cut to 15%.

“But the new policy does not merely have an outrageously low threshold, it also requires only one resident to request a dual signage (equal Gaelic and English). If none does, an elected representative for the electoral area can do so, or a developer. Then it goes to consultation needing only 15% support in the street. But the policy has been diluted even more than that threshold implies – the minimum 15% support no longer applies to the whole street, but only to the percentage of households who have replied.

“As the policy makers very well know, people of goodwill often fail to reply to surveys because they are busy in their lives or forget to do so or miss a deadline, even if they intended to engage. The new policy means that a Sinn Fein councillor who represents a mixed electoral area can apply for Gaelic in a street of 40 people, and, if only 20 people reply to the consultation and a mere 15% of that number support it – three people – it it [sic] will pass.

“The council is hiding behind a discretion it has to turn down dual signage to pretend that there is a robust system to prevent Irish signage in such circumstances, but I predict that it will be of minimal effect.”

The opinion writer’s assertion that only 15% of respondents to the consultation need to indicate support for the application process to continue is inaccurate.

The policy states that support is required from “15% or more of occupants”. FactCheckNI asked Belfast City Council to clarify whether this means 15% of occupants in total or 15% of respondents to the consultation. They told us it was the former.

This in turn means that the theoretical situation outlined in the article – where support from three residents in a street of 40 households is enough to meet the threshold – is an inaccurate scenario.

However, there is more to the dual signage process than simply the process for application. A lot can happen after an application is made, even in cases where an application passes the thresholds for success.

The News Letter column leaves out the need for the People and Communities Committee to approve the request, which then allows it to be considered at a full council meeting for a final decision.

In fairness, this is very similar to the previous policy and the article is mainly a comparison between that and the new one.

However, the column does at least allude to this part of the process, which brings us to one of the central aspects of the dual language street sign policy – one which isy mentioned (correctly, as a fact) before being immediately dismissed (as an opinion, or assessment, or prediction of the future – none of which are fact checkable) in the final paragraph quoted above.

• Discretion

Ultimately, putting up dual language street signs remains a discretionary power afforded to the council. Even if an application follows the process as outlined above and fulfils all the criteria, the council can still say no.

In fact, this has always been the case, ever since the first policy was established 25 years ago – a policy that itself was permitted thanks to Westminster legislation from 1995. According to council documentation:

“Article 11 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 provides for street naming, street numbering and the provision of street signs and forms the statutory backdrop to the policy. It also gives councils the discretionary power to erect dual language street signs or secondary nameplates in a language other than English.

“Article 11(4) requires the council in deciding whether to exercise its discretionary powers to have regard to any views on the matter expressed by the occupiers of premises in a street.”

A potentially significant change did occur when the new policy was brought into place. For the first time, terms of reference were laid down for this residual discretion wielded by Belfast City Council. This is outlined in the final report for the EQIA:

“The council has always had residual discretion to erect or not erect a dual language street sign taking into consideration all relevant information (in addition to that contained in the application and petition). However, the current policy does not outline the factors that the council will consider when exercising such residual discretion.”

The following factors are now explicitly mentioned in council policy as ones which should be kept in mind when the council is considering use of its discretionary powers:

• The views of the occupiers of the street
• The result of the assessment for each application to identify and inform the council of any equality of opportunity, good relations or rural needs implications
• Consideration of the local context of the application
• Any other council policies or strategies related to the application
• All material considerations relating to the application

The writer raises doubt about whether this power will have any teeth and the mind of the full council is the final word on erecting dual language street signs as a policy.

• Process

The council’s powers mean it can “take into account the specific circumstances of each application when determining the outcome.” According to a 2021 report for Belfast City Council’s Strategic Policy and Resources Committee:

“The exercise of the Committee’s residual discretion will ensure that second language street signs will not be erected in a manner which could undermine Good Relations at a neighbourhood level.”

But how does all this work?

According to the final report following the EQIA:

“When the council receives an application, there is a process in place for creating and sending the surveys to the residents of the street in question. The survey will include the proposed translation of the street name into the second language, which is arranged by the council from an appropriate, independent and competent institution. The residents have one month to respond to the survey. The survey results are then collated by council officers, and a report is prepared for each application that will go to Committee.

“The council’s current resources enable it to process a maximum of five applications per month…

“The Committee then has to consider the report along with the survey results and any other relevant information to make a decision. The Committee’s decision will be based on a simple majority. The vote is then ratified at the next full council meeting.”

This decision can be reconsidered – via a “call-in” mechanism – if 15% of elected councillors tell the Chief Executive that the decision was either:

1. not arrived at after a proper consideration of the relevant facts or issues; or
2. that the decision would disproportionately adversely affect any section of the inhabitants of the district.

The final EQIA report states that:

“If the requisition states wholly or in part that the decision would disproportionately affect adversely any section of the inhabitants of the district, the council is required to obtain the opinion of a practising barrister or solicitor.

“If the practising barrister or solicitor is of the opinion that there is merit in reconsidering the decision, the council must vote again and the reconsidered decision will require a qualified majority of at least 80 per cent of Elected Representatives present voting in favour of the original decision.”

• Residual discretion and teeth

So the powers of residual discretion are not some nebulous, paper concept. There is an explicit process by which council members can attempt to forcibly overturn a decision to grant dual language signage, even when that application has ostensibly ticked all the right boxes.

All that is necessary for this to happen is:

1. 15% of councillors write to the CEO objecting to the initial decision on one of the two bases outlined above
2. An engaged barrister or solicitor then says there is some merit in reconsidering the initial decision
3. Over 20% of councillors go against the original decision or abstain when the matter goes back to full council

Any positive decision on dual language signage can be overturned in those circumstances.

The News Letter  opinion article fails to mention any of this. Instead, it suggests a single councillor and a minority of residents can force through decisions, even when local residents are largely against dual signage.

It dismisses the council’s final discretion with the written equivalent of a wave of a hand, without appreciating that there is a detailed and tangible post-application process whereby the council can first approve (or not) an application and, even when approval has been granted, it is possible for a minority of councillors to pull the plug provided an independent barrister believes there is some merit in their objections.

In summary, the article first provides an outline of the application process for dual language signage, and the primary criteria for that application to be successful. This outline contains some errors, described above.After that, the column mentions and then dismisses the *post-*application process despite the fact this has significant and specific powers to either reject applications (including those that meet the criteria) or even overturn successful applications.