Michael Copeland's East Belfast UUP Advice Centre

23/06/2025

With loads happening for the July festivities in the area this is just one of the events the band will be hosting with help from Greater Village Regeneration Trust so come along with the family and help us celebrate 🇬🇧🇬🇧

21/04/2025

21/04/2025

If your bin was to be emptied today (Saturday 19 April) due to the Easter break, and it wasn't cleared, please leave it out again by 7am on Monday.

If it's not cleared by 7pm on Monday, report it online at https://ow.ly/wfvs50VEVpN

All our collections will be taking place as normal on Easter Tuesday 22 April.

Remember - our recycling centres and amenity sites will be closed tomorrow (Easter Sunday) and Easter Monday. They will reopen again on Easter Tuesday.

Our offices and phonelines are also closed on Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday, and opening hours for our venues vary.

Make sure to check our website - belfastcity.gov.uk/holidayarrangements

21/04/2025

03/04/2025

“Having been convicted of the brutal murder of Jim McFadden, in Londonderry, James Meehan was sentenced to a minimum 14-year life sentence in 2009. A sentence he was to serve in a Northern Ireland prison. In 2022, as part of the pre-release scheme, Meehan was staying in Burren House prison wing bu...

03/04/2025

James Gamble, the prominent industrialist who co-founded the company Procter & Gamble, was born on this day in 1803 near Enniskillen, County Fermanagh.

Born to a Methodist minister, the Gamble family emigrated to America in 1819 to escape the depression in Ireland. James was initially very ill in America, but after his recovery was apprenticed to a soap-maker. For his first six months he received no pay, only his board and lodging.

Gamble soon went into business with William Procter, a candle-maker, after they became related by marriage and realised their two products, soap and candles, were made using many of the same ingredients.

The company sold its products widely, thanks to the expansion of the railways: in 1859 its sales exceeded $1 million. It was awarded contracts to supply the union armies with soap and candles during the American civil war, and in 1879 began the manufacture of Ivory soap, which became one of its most important products.

The name of Procter & Gamble has been known worldwide ever since; family members, especially James's eldest son, James Norris Gamble, oversaw its great expansion and diversification.

Among the brands that Procter & Gamble owns today are well-known names such as Febreze, Gillette, Head & Shoulders, and Fairy. The company employs over 100,000 people worldwide.

13/01/2024

It is a sort Of folly to remain wise in the midst of those who are mad..

31/10/2023

With an amber warning in place from 9pm this evening, Monday 30 October until 9am, Tuesday 31 October, please take care and check in on elderly or vulnerable neighbours 🌧️☂️

You can contact the Flooding Incident Line on: 0300 2000 100 if you need to - and you'll find more information at ow.ly/zILF50PQ2ZX

11/10/2023

24/07/2023

23/06/2023

Three emergency ambulance crews were deployed to a major road traffic collision in Co Antrim on Thursday night.

16/05/2023

I wrote this in the small hours when sleep escaped me..

Local Councillors and Councils are in a unique position in the political structure of Government.
They are bound by law to do certain things, to perform these functions they raise money by a local tax known as the Rates, so it’s unsurprising the primary responsibility they must discharge is to set a Legal Rate.
They must then, use the money raised to provide certain services.. the collection and disposal of waste, the registering of births,deaths and marriages the provision of cemeteries and I think leisure services.
These represent the primary responsibilities.
Local Councillors are expected to attend
monthly meeting of Council, Special meetings of Council when required and meetings of Council Committees to which they are appointed.
Unlike any other level of Government the are also potentially liable to Surcharge which means that if they are present when decision which costs money is taken and that decision is later to be found improper and they did not vote against that decision then they are personally responsible jointly and severally to repay the money.
Local Councillors as individuals may also chose provide other services.. advice and intervention on behalf of their constituents regarding Benefits, housing,Education and many other issues… some chose to do all these things above and beyond what others do.
Local Councillors are paid a mileage allowance to attend council meeting but not to visit constituents or attend meeting with or on behalf of constituents.
Local Councillors receive no financial support to provide offices or support staff.
Local Councillors reflect our society some are hardworking and effective others in all honestly are less so, that said in my honest opinion they are the most cost effective level of Government that we have and amongst the most accessible.
Perhaps if Councillors concentrated on discharging their legal responsibilities and less Council time taken upon Notices of Motions on issues over which they have no control this might be a cleaner, tidier, more respectful, fitter and healthier place.
People tell me that in my time I helped a lot of people, I still bump into them in the course of my daily life… truth be told I sometimes struggle to remember them..the ones that I could not help … I remember almost perfectly…. Those failures haunt me even though I know I did my best, it used to really bother me that Councillors from other parties used to advise people to come and see me saying “ because you go to him doesn’t mean you have to vote for him” ….
The Political Landscape here has changed dramatically the exercise of reducing the number of Councils from 26 to 11 has not in my honest opinion produced more effective less expensive Local Government.
At Stormont (Regional Government) the reduction of the number of seats from 108 to 90 saw the loss 18 seats 16 of which were Unionist … I don’t think that if the perceived end result of that process had been the loss of 16 Republican or Nationalist seats the proposal would have ever seen the light of day.
The change to the method of electing the First Minister which was previously based on the largest party from the largest designation to the largest party and all the angst that has flowed from that.
Now there will be pressure to further amend the Belfast Agreement and bring about changes to the system of weighted majorities, cross community votes an the petition of concern in effect instituting what amounts to majority rule …to me it’s clear that this pressure will come from those who when they they were a minority called for an end to majority rule and have now that they may be a majority have changed their tune.
David Trimble was many things but he was not a fool.. he asked to see me after I was first elected as he knew I had personally voted against the Belfast Agreement… during the conversation he explained that when developing the protections built into the Agreement for minorities he had in the the thought process foreseen the day when Unionists might need those protections.
I also had a conversation with a very senior member of another Unionist Party who confided that they had deliberately poisoned David Trimble because they realised that they would need the Agreement.
I was brought up in a working class home the bread was put on the table by my fathers job in the shipyard… he was born and raised in Coburg Street… my mother was from Calvin Street..
Working class Unionism was for a very long time taken for granted… now it’s in danger of being taken for fools.
The Protocol troubles me deeply and I honestly don’t know what the answer is … what I do know is that some of the loudest voices against it now,ignored warning about the likely issues that would arise in its implementation .
I was, am and will remain a Unionist… in terms of politics and culture, I’m old fashioned and to be frank old…. That does not means that I count any other human being any the less for not being those things.
I do not think I have ever hated anyone but I have disliked many… I believe that capitalism with all its faults is needed to produce wealth and that the wealth produced should be apportioned according to a social conscience.
I believe that voting is a duty ….
A hard won right … I always voted for the person not the party …. and I always voted on issues as I knew them to be and not what the political parties said they were.
I always tried to put people first… the individual citizen not demographic group, I don’t know how well or badly I did.
As I said I’m old now and my memory isn’t what it once was but I will never ever forget the very great kindness shown to me by the extraordinary ordinary folk of East Belfast who I once had the privilege to serve.
Vote for those who put people first… be there for them so that they can be there for you …