Sinn Féin and the PSNI are at odds over a night time street trading designation for an area off Castle Street in Belfast city centre.

Elected representatives at Belfast City Council this week deferred a decision to allow night time street trading on a site at the end of King Street, beside Castle Court, after police aired their objections to the plan.

The council’s Licensing Committee received a proposal for the site to trade in hot and cold food and non-alcoholic beverages at night time.

The committee previously refused designation of the site as a new street trading area in 2021, based on concerns which had been raised by both the PSNI and the not-for-profit company Belfast City Centre Management.

After the new application, police told the council that they continued to object to the site being designated for street trading at night.

Read more Belfast’s first power station and unaltered Victorian house both granted listed status

In a letter to the council in April this year, they wrote: “Please note that during further consideration to the designation of the above street trading pitch, there are particular concerns from police regarding the potential for disorder in and around the surrounding and immediate area of the proposed site location.

“There is the potential for crowds gathering and loitering in unmanaged queues, possibly spilling out onto the main road or causing additional antisocial behaviour, graffiti and rubbish in an area already of concern for police.”

Sinn Féin councillor Áine McCabe told the Licensing Committee the area was the “gateway to west Belfast” and said her party had “previous worries” that the site was deemed unacceptable.

She said there was “nothing materially different” from other sites that had been approved by the council for street trading, including a licence on Donegall Square East approved moments earlier by the committee.

Ms McCabe proposed the committee agree to the designation of the site on King Street for street trading at night.

Green councillor Brian Smyth said: “I don’t think anything has changed. I would say we do not give approval to this.

“If police are saying it is already an area of concern for them, I don’t think we can let this go ahead.

“Because if anybody gets hurt round there, it lands on this committee.”

SDLP councillor Gary McKeown, chair of the Licensing Committee, said: “The material difference is that there is a police objection to this.”

The City Solicitor Nora Largey said another difference was that the Donegall Square East pitch had been previously approved as a designated street trading site “for a considerable period of time”.

Read more Belfast city centre Christmas lights display to be cut in half due to budget constraints

She added: “King Street is (being considered) as a new, additional designation. That is the difference between the two. If you could go back in time, whether you would accept or not Donegall Square East in principle, I don’t know if the committee’s decision would be the same.

“But this one is about the principle of a hot food bar at King Street. In Donegall Square East the decision has already been made.”

The committee agreed as a compromise to defer the matter for further discussion, and to receive more detail from the PSNI about alleged antisocial behaviour in the area.