Our Strategy 2030

Portview will inspire and reconnect communities to their industrial heritage, challenge how we think about the past, present and future, and open up opportunities that inspire curiosity and help people create their own futures. We want Portview to be a vessel for positive change in Belfast and beyond: a social-enterprise place where heritage-led development creates social, economic and environmental benefit. Our mission is to use the Mill, our partnerships, our purchasing power and the activity taking place across the site to generate as much positive value as possible for tenants, visitors and the wider community.

Portview is a heritage asset, but our ambition is not to turn Strand Spinning Mill into a museum. We want to preserve the character, fabric and stories that make the Mill important while ensuring the buildings remain useful and relevant to future generations. That means repairing and bringing historic spaces back into use, collecting and sharing the stories of people connected to the Mill, and finding new purposes for spaces that were once at the heart of Belfast’s linen industry. The Strategic Plan describes Portview as a place that celebrates and reimagines the past, present and future — a living and breathing building inspired by the past but relevant to future needs.

Portview exists to support enterprise and employment. We want to build a community of independent businesses, SMEs, social enterprises and creative organisations that can work, collaborate and grow together. Some businesses arrive looking for their first permanent home. Others need more room as they expand. Portview’s role is to provide distinctive space, a supportive business environment and connections that help organisations take their next step. Our ambition goes beyond occupancy. We want the businesses based here to contribute to the wider Portview community and to the economic and social life of East Belfast.

Regeneration must be sustainable. For Portview, resilience means looking after the physical building, maintaining a financially sustainable social enterprise, supporting the businesses and organisations based here and reducing the environmental impact of how the site operates. It also means working in partnership. A project of this scale cannot be delivered by Portview alone. Our relationships with tenants, local communities, funders, public agencies, education partners and heritage organisations are fundamental to the future of the Mill. We want decisions made today to strengthen Portview economically, socially and environmentally for the years ahead.

We want to understand and demonstrate the difference Portview makes. The Strategic Plan established a framework for monitoring progress across the five themes. As that framework develops, we will focus on measures including historic space restored and brought back into use; businesses and jobs supported; people participating in learning and training; events and visitors; external investment secured; local business spend; social value created; and environmental performance. The purpose is not to collect data for its own sake. Better evidence helps us make better decisions, demonstrate value to partners and funders, and be transparent about both progress and the work still to do. Headline results should be published through Our Impact and updated as reliable data becomes available.