Apprentice Boys' leaders will meet nationalist residents in Derry today in an effort to resolve differences before a contentious parade due to take place in the city later this month.
The Apprentice Boys' annual Relief of Derry parade takes place next Saturday. There was serious violence after last year's parade, both in Derry and on the Lower Ormeau Road in Belfast, after a "feeder" parade was forced down the road against the wishes of residents.
Businessmen seeking to resolve the issue of the parade peacefully this year said they were hopeful of a breakthrough.
Mr Garvan O'Doherty said he would be putting proposals on contentious areas to both the Apprentice Boys and the nationalist Bogside Residents Group under the auspices of the city's "Town Centre Management Group", of which he is co-chairman.
The proposals are understood to have their roots in a questionnaire sent by the group to 1,270 businesses and community groups in the Derry City Council area.
Mr O'Doherty said he had produced a report based on feedback from the questionnaire. "I hope we will come up with a solution that allows Derry not to have to face the negative images which appear yearly in the media."
This would permit those in community, business and tourism sectors to "get on with the bigger job of developing Derry".
Mr O'Doherty would not say what might be contained in his report further than that it would "address contentious issues and suggest solutions".
The governor of the Apprentice Boys, Mr Alistair Simpson, said he had no idea what proposals might be put to his group.
To alleviate tension, the Apprentice Boys last year instigated a mini-carnival around their annual parade. This has now been expanded to a week-long festival.
Such moves, along with efforts by nationalists to ease tensions, led to agreement between residents and Apprentice Boys on last December's Lundy day parade, which subsequently passed off peacefully.
With agreement having been reached in December, Mr O'Doherty said: `Our task now is to resolve the contentious issues around the August parade".
The Lundy day parade differs from this month's in that there are no feeder parades linked to it. There are 111 feeder parades associated with the Relief of Derry parade.