Unless we progress we are not advancing the society, no business can afford to stand still. We have to continually work at expanding what we are doing,” said newly elected Royal Ulster Society President Billy Martin when we met during the seventh running of Balmoral Show at its new site near Lisburn.

We went on to discuss the dramatic move from the Kings Hall, the expansion of their grounds, the creation of new buildings and the ongoing issue of parking.

Need to move

Billy has a long standing association with and love of Balmoral. Yet he has no qualms about the necessity of their 2012 move from the Kings Hall to the new Balmoral Park.

“Our facilities were becoming tired. We were short of space and parking. It is also no secret that the society was losing money at the time. I honestly believe that if we had not moved we would have been out of business today,” he explained.

The society bought 57 acres beside Halftown Road, Lisburn that doubled their space. However, some issues remained. Billy explained that the immense car park currently in use by the show was not part of the purchase.

“People may not realise that all the parking facilities we have is on land that does not belong to us and the money from the car parks does not to go the society, it goes to a development company. The facility is there and we very much appreciate that.

“However, nobody knows what is going to happen to that site and the car park facility may not be available. So we have to try and make other arrangements. Along with the 57 acres we bought here, we have an option on extra lands that were part of the original agreement.

“We are working to try and enlarge that as well. We have to raise additional and enabling finance that will allow us to expand.”

He also explained that there will have to be expansion within the show grounds itself: “Since moving, we have been able to expand in so many ways, including having a great reach within the general public and having more trade stands. However, we still have over 100 companies on a waiting list wanting to exhibit.

“So we are currently looking at growing the show a bit more. Although we own almost twice the area we had at the Kings Hall we will have to expand that some way or another.”

New buildings

With the newly opened Dr Logan Hall and the Eikon Centre Balmoral now has the largest covered exhibition space anywhere in Ireland. But once again more needs to be done. All of their secretarial and operational activity was moved from the Kings Hall last year. Billy would like to have a bespoke permanent building for both the needs of staff and for members.

“Along with storage facilities we need a signature building where our office would be permanently based and where there would be facility for members as well,” he noted. He also has big dreams for the future: “I would like to see this site in the long term develop into a Centre of Excellence for the Agri-food industry. We cannot forget that Northern Ireland was awarded the best region to eat in the world last November.”

He also noted that the society have retained ownership of the front portion of the Kings Hall site and that they will soon be seeking planning permission for a huge medical centre. So, he concludes: “We are not standing still. We need to expand and we need enabling finance to do that. At a steady pace we are successfully growing.”