Lough Neagh Partnership has been revealed to have advised stakeholders to enter negotiations with the Shaftesbury Estate over the transfer of the lough bed before conducting fundamental legal and financial due diligence. Internal emails from February 2025 show the Partnership suggested commissioning due diligence work only at a later stage, once the Earl of Shaftesbury was ready to proceed with ownership transfer. The due diligence would have examined costs, risks, land registry issues, and deeds regularisation.

The Lough Neagh Partnership, a non-profit body, receives significant public funding. Between 2009 and 2022-23, it obtained at least £5-6 million from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, plus approximately £470,000 in 2024-25. The Shaftesbury Estate has also provided funding, disclosing a commitment of £12,000 over two years and an undisclosed larger sum for the subsequent three years. Representatives of the Estate and of sand dredging interests sit on the LNP board, alongside councillors, community group members, and government agency representatives.

The disclosures emerge as Lough Neagh braces for what could be a fourth consecutive summer of extensive blue-green algal blooms, with a conference titled Saving Irish Lakes due in Belfast this week. Both the Earl and LNP manager Gerry Darby are scheduled to address the event.

After the initial proposal, some due diligence work was carried out by the Lough Neagh Development Trust, which was contracted by the LNP through a Single Action Tender, an award without competition. That work, conducted over the latter half of 2025, produced a report examining legal frameworks for community ownership. The report noted broad agreement that current governance arrangements cannot address Lough Neagh’s ecological crisis and that ownership transfer is legally complex and financially demanding. It estimated a full due diligence process would require at least nine months.

The LNP described the due diligence project as significant and complex, with £10,000 allocated. A total of £224,395 was awarded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund for the larger Lough Neagh Ownership and Heritage Resilience Project in July 2023. The fund has said it is satisfied all project activities were delivered.

John Barry, a professor of green political economy at Queen’s University Belfast, questioned the LNP’s recommendation. He said asking local stakeholders to negotiate without that research would mean entering talks blind. Community groups would be at a severe disadvantage in resources and legal expertise compared with the Estate.

Neither the Earl and Shaftesbury Estate nor the LNP provided comment when approached.