Debate contribution: Housing: North Belfast

Debate contribution by Mr Phillip Brett on 9 April 2024.

MLA

Mr Phillip Brett

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

9 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Housing: North Belfast

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4482304

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I pay tribute to the Member for securing this important debate. Housing is very close to my heart and to that of all colleagues who represent North Belfast. It is worth putting on record the lack of turnout at the debate from certain political quarters. No doubt they will be on Facebook at other times saying how they and their representatives are fighting the housing cause in North Belfast, yet when they have the opportunity to stand up in the House and fight for the people who elected us, their absence is notable. Rather than fight for people as representatives in this place, Facebook seems to be the way to go for them. In May 2022, I unashamedly stood for election in North Belfast on the slogan of "Building back North Belfast" to end the years of dereliction and demolition and to rebuild, regenerate and once again regrow that proud community. What we have seen in recent months is to be welcomed. We have a record number of new social housing schemes, either on-site or now on-programme, but that cannot be the limit of our ambition. What it must be is the baseline for what all representatives for North Belfast want to see, which is access to good-quality, affordable housing for every single person in the constituency, regardless of the community in which they live. My office — like every other in North Belfast, I am sure — is inundated day and daily with families who are at their wits' end. Children are forced to live in living rooms on their grandparents' sofas. There are three or four generations of a family in one house. Most disgracefully, we have communities and families being exploited by ruthless landlords. As Carál Ní Chuilín made very clear, we have some private landlord accommodation in an absolutely disgraceful condition across North Belfast, but that accommodation is the only option that a family has. A family will fear reporting a private landlord to the council in order to get environmental health improvements made to the property, because they know what will happen, which is that they will simply get their eviction notice. Another family will be moved into the property, and that family will then have nowhere to go. The daily picture in my office, as I have said, is one of three and four generations of a family living in one household. There are people living in rental accommodation that is beyond unacceptable. Unfortunately, when people, particularly single males, come to our offices, we simply have to say to them, "You have no chance of getting a social house allocated to you in North Belfast". That is simply not what we, as elected representatives, want to say to our people. What we cannot do, however, is build up their expectations or hold wrong views that the situation is going to change without there being an intensive investment programme. That is the simple reality that all elected representatives in North Belfast are having to tell people. Young people do not have the option of staying in their homes. Proud communities are being broken up, and people are being forced to move to other parts of the city or to neighbouring boroughs. For me, the Department for Communities is the most important Department in the Executive. That was why I was so delighted that our party chose that Department, because the work that we can do there to change lives and families is unparalleled. Be it the Rathcoole, Oldpark, Glengormley or Ligonel areas, on the Shore Road or in the New Lodge, the issues faced by every person are exactly the same. All they want is to have good-quality, affordable and secure housing for their families. As a modern society, how can we deny them those basic requirements? That is why all of us who represent North Belfast speak with one voice, I think, on this issue. We want to see proper investment in social and affordable housing throughout the constituency. It would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to what I call my second family in North Belfast: the Housing Executive. Sometimes I think that I speak to its staff more than they get to speak to their own families. I pay tribute to them and recognise the Shankill office, the north Belfast office and the Newtownabbey 1 and Newtownabbey 2 offices, which cover North Belfast. They give the utmost professionalism and dedication to their jobs because they care about the communities in North Belfast and want to see our people accessing the homes that they need and deserve. The thing that shows that the housing crisis in North Belfast continues to be exacerbated is the points level at which houses are currently being allocated. I remember that, when I was first elected 10 years ago in North Belfast, you could get a house at 80 or 90 points. Now, you are talking about 200 or 220 points, and, for many people, getting to that level is simply impossible. The only route by which people are getting those points is through intimidation points. Those people move in and disrupt communities, and then we have a constant cycle where houses are destroyed and taken out of the social housing stock for many months to be repaired, and the cycle continues. I hope that the Minister will be able to refer to his ongoing review on that issue, because the intimidation points issue simply needs to be looked at. What follows will be a rare of example of me offering the Minister some advice on how he may be able to sort out some of the housing issues in North Belfast. First, allow the Housing Executive to build houses again in Northern Ireland. North Belfast has eight excellent sites that remain in the Housing Executive's ownership, which, if it had the ability to build houses itself, would go some way to meeting the housing demand in North Belfast. Secondly, continue to extend the building successful communities programme, which has been a success in lower Oldpark and in the Gainsborough/Mountcollyer area, and other parts of North Belfast would benefit from that. Thirdly, the tower block strategy should be abandoned by the Minister. How can we go about telling people that we have a housing crisis in North Belfast but that we are going to knock down 50 or 60 houses at one site without being able to replace them? In my view, that is not acceptable. Before I was elected to the Assembly, I served as a non-executive member of the Housing Executive board, and I made it clear that such an action would simply exacerbate the housing crisis. I hope that the Minister will continue to recognise that tower blocks have an important role to play in North Belfast and that they should be invested in and made to be family homes for the people of North Belfast, who deserve to continue to live in their communities.

1,162 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:57 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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