Debate contribution: Housing: North Belfast
Debate contribution by Mr Brian Kingston on .
- MLA
- Mr Brian Kingston
- 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 4482317
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I welcome the debate, as others have done, and thank the Member for securing the debate on housing in North Belfast. I think that all five MLAs from North Belfast agree that this is the number-one issue that they deal with in the number of requests that come into their constituency offices. Those come from people who are seeking for us to help to push their case for social housing or who require repairs to social housing, as well as from people in private tenancies — a bit more work is needed, through the council, to make improvements to those properties — or from people who are being threatened with eviction and are in crisis. There is also the ongoing work that we all do to try to see derelict and housing opportunity sites developed. It typically takes years of work to bring a successful outcome in those cases. Closely associated with that housing work is the work on the environment: alleyways, areas where there has been dumping and areas that are not being well maintained, where proper maintenance may not have been planned from the start. First, the good news is that demand in North Belfast is increasing. That is good. It would be good, though, if that resulted in more social housing sites being brought forward. A frustration that we have is that, where that demand increases, we do not see the increase in the number of sites. That means that more people are frustrated and disappointed and asking us to lobby for them to help them to get social housing. I can remember the times when people could get a social house in greater Shankill or North Belfast with fewer than 50 points. Now, typically, you would need 150-plus to have any chance. As I said, we are constantly working with the Housing Executive, the Department, housing associations and private developers to see those sites brought forward. There are always complications along the way, but that work continues. Yesterday's debate about water infrastructure was obviously very relevant to this. It is usually one of the main stumbling hurdles, with developers being told they have to build extra pipework to make the connections to the storm drains or the sewerage system and to keep the two systems separate, which is adding six-figure sums on to developments and making some small developments unviable. This issue will not go away for us, as an Assembly. We will have to address the need to invest in the waste water system and find a way to fund it to address the problem. The Minister may be aware that, in the greater Shankill area, a lobby group has set up the BUILD project, which has mapped the number of derelict and housing opportunity sites, as I call them, in that area. Over 70 viable sites have been developed, some in private ownership and some in statutory ownership, with the Department for Communities, the Education Authority or other Government bodies. My colleagues and I have been working with the BUILD group to push for statutory bodies to meet, at a senior level, the Housing Executive, the Department for Communities and Belfast City Council and asking for a coordinated strategic plan to bring forward those sites. I sometimes hear of other areas where residents and communities are opposing social housing, but that is certainly not the experience in North Belfast. People want to see developments taking place, and we urge the Department to work where there is that willingness and see sites brought forward. I agree with the comments about co-ownership. We have seen private developments where, in some areas, the market was not strong and developers were sitting on their land. We are now seeing sites moving forward and, in some of those areas, maybe a third of the houses are being sold through co-ownership. I agree that it provides a path into home ownership for people for whom, otherwise, the level of deposit or the mortgage interest rates would be prohibitive. I am a very strong supporter of the co-ownership scheme, and it is making that path possible for people. I want to mention a particular area with opportunity sites, which is Glencairn. With the Forthriver ward now moving into North Belfast, it certainly has opportunity sites and is very much in need of a village plan. As the Minister may know, through Belfast City Council, we have most of the funding needed for a community facility at the heart of Glencairn. There is a need for remaining funding to cover the cost of that, but the area is crying out for a proper village plan and it has the opportunity sites within it to make that viable. I also want to speak positively, as my colleague did, about the building successful communities programme, which was an initiative of a former Minister from my party who recognised that always waiting for the waiting lists to grow in certain areas to justify a development was a negative cycle and that there was a need to break that by putting some new housing into an area. It has been very successful in lower Shankill and Tigers Bay, and it also operated in lower Oldpark. The actual work in lower Shankill is continuing. As well as housing, there have been other developments with the new walkway and improvements to some publicly and privately owned sites with clawbacks in place. It has made a significant difference in those disadvantaged areas. My colleague mentioned the Housing Executive staff. They work hard, and we need the vacancies in those public-facing positions to be filled.
In North Belfast, we have a number of interfaces. In places, it is like a patchwork quilt. Some people almost try to deny that there are issues there, but there are, and, even though there has been a great improvement in those areas, things can flare up, so those issues need to be managed well. I thank the Minister for his attendance today. I thank the Member opposite for securing the Adjournment debate, and I look forward to the Minister's contribution.
1,016 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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