Debate contribution: Housing Crisis on the North Coast

Debate contribution by Ms Sian Mulholland on 7 May 2024.

MLA

Ms Sian Mulholland

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

7 May 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Housing Crisis on the North Coast

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4488508

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I am obviously here as an MLA for North Antrim, but we share a council area and the pressure for housing on the north coast does not end at the boundary into Portballintrae. Something similar is happening in Bushmills, Ballintoy, Ballycastle and even on round into your constituency, Minister, in Cushendall, although I am taking back Cushendun in the next boundary changes. It is a common issue across the north coast, and there is an urgency about the debate. I hear about this so often in my constituency surgeries outside of the Mid and East Antrim Borough Council bit of the constituency, when we go into the Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council area. What was a crisis of housing is now a real threat to the sustenance of the communities right along the coast.

We urge that action be taken to address the multifaceted nature of the crisis, particularly the unchecked growth of second homes, the detrimental impact of short-term rentals that appear on platforms such as Airbnb and the lack of affordable and social housing in the area. I will not go over the statistics that the Members who spoke before me, both of whom represent East Derry/Londonderry, outlined. The proliferation of second homes is not just a statistic but a force that is driving those astronomical levels, and it renders the dream of local residents to buy their own home completely inaccessible. I have spoken to constituents in my area who have had to move to Ballymena, Ballymoney or Coleraine just to get somewhere affordable to live. The knock-on effect of that is that there are more challenges to growing a family, between childcare issues and being able to raise a family without a close network nearby. As they say, it takes a village to raise a child, but we are losing that sense of community. On top of all those issues, the average wage in the Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council area is depressingly low when compared with the soaring property prices. The disparity is stark. The lowest average wage in Northern Ireland is found in Causeway Coast and Glens, while the highest average house price is also found in Causeway Coast and Glens. Our communities face a crisis that is perpetuating the cycle of outward migration to areas such as Ballymoney, Ballymena and even Belfast, although why would people choose to live in Belfast when they could live on the north coast? I think that that is the issue. It does not get any easier for those who are unable to buy their own home. The rents that are charged to long-term tenants in the area are rising faster there than in any other region. The rise of Airbnb has exacerbated the situation, as we have said. If property owners can get up to eight times more for a short-term let than they can for a long-term rental, more and more of them will choose that, which underscores the urgency of the situation. According to the figures, 3,000 new self-catering units have been registered since 2019. That is a staggering 163% increase in self-catering accommodation, and nearly 40% of it is in the Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council area. Of course, that is just the ones that are properly registered, because, as we know, there is a proliferation of such accommodation that is not registered. That is something that we hear anecdotally in the office about places in Ballintoy, Ballycastle and across the north coast. The Department for the Economy's recent report recommends trying to regulate those short-term rentals and the online booking platforms in order to restore balance. We would welcome that. There has to be some kind of oversight of the percentage of homes that are either second homes or short-term rentals. The consequences of the crisis extend far beyond economics. Our communities are suffering, as I have said. Local businesses falter during the off-peak season. Populations dwindle owing to the lack of affordable housing, so schools close, services vanish and the fabric of those communities frays. The issues with social housing are not unique to our region, with Northern Ireland as a whole grappling with the same challenges, especially in the absence of a housing supply strategy. We would love to see one urgently. As we map the market and the need and analyse the numbers, it becomes clear that it is something on which we need to take action as quickly as we can. We cannot allow those communities to wither away. If young people are not able to grow up in their community and we continue to have more and more transient populations, there is nowhere left for people from those communities to go. We want a future in which housing is a right, not a privilege that is dictated by economic disparity.

805 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:22 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification