Order set to reduce march numbers
Orangemen have voted “overwhelmingly but reluctantly” to reduce the numbers participating in part of the Whiterock parade in west Belfast on Saturday.
The decision means a smaller number of Orangemen will pass through the Workman Avenue security gates on to the mainly nationalist Springfield Road.
The proposal by senior members of the Order’s Belfast No9 district was put to a meeting on Thursday evening.
Residents want a judicial review of the Parades Commission’s determination.
The commission has allowed one lodge onto the nationalist Springfield Road with the main parade re-routed via a former factory site.
The residents of the Clonard area are seeking the judicial review to be heard in the High Court on Friday.
Earlier on Thursday, Orangemen said they would abide by the restrictions placed on the parade by the Parade Commission.
‘Compromise’
Tommy Cheevers from the North and West Belfast Parades Forum said it had been a difficult decision but there had to be a compromise.
“If we can achieve a peaceful summer we’ll have played our part,” he said.
“One side can’t have a veto and it has to be done in a spirit of compromise and accommodation, it can’t be just one side’s story told here.”
On Wednesday, the commission turned down a request from Sinn Fein to review its ruling on the march, which last year saw serious rioting.
The commission said there was no new evidence to look at.
Sinn Fein said the determination was rewarding violence.
The cost of policing the Whiterock parade last year and subsequent rioting in a number of loyalist areas was estimated at £3m by the PSNI.
Police officers were attacked with petrol bombs and blast bombs, as well as live rounds during the trouble.
Last year the Orange Order delayed the parade until September in protest after the commission re-routed the entire parade through the former Mackies factory site instead of allowing it through Workman Avenue.
The government-appointed Parades Commission was set up in 1997 to make decisions on whether controversial parades should be restricted.
