About the Citizen Sounding Board

The Citizen Sounding is a group of residents in the area affected by the mid-Antrim Upgrade who were selected at random by posting invitations to households in the area, inviting them to take part in deliberative workshops. Their involvement addresses the gap in representation that can result from only hearing from organised civil society and interest groups, and acknowledges that ordinary citizens have the right to have a voice in, and have something important to bring to, decisions that will have an impact on everyone. 

The group operates as a Sounding Board for SONI and the Community Forum, able to provide broadly representative local response, identify priorities, provide feedback and develop recommendations. 

The input of the Citizen Sounding Board also enables the Community Forum members to be better equipped to more effectively and fairly represent the priorities, concerns and interests of their local area. 

The Citizen Sounding Board will be brought together for at least 3 days during Phase 2 of the mid-Antrim Upgrade.

The first two day of workshops were held on 3 and 4 December 2022, in Portglenone (see agenda and slides below). The report on this workshop is due early in 2023, and provides important feedback for SONI on local priorities and preferences to consider when selecting the location of a new substation at Terrygowan and overhead lines between Terrygowan and Rasharkin. 

The third day will be later in 2023 after some route options have been defined by SONI. 

Further reading

Options and Needs Report – the work carried out by SONI during Part 1 of the process

https://www.soni.ltd.uk/the-grid/projects/mid-antrim-upgrade/related-documents/