Debate contribution: Housing Emergency

Debate contribution by Mr Andy Allen MBE on 15 October 2024.

MLA

Mr Andy Allen MBE

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

15 October 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Housing Emergency

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4592685

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important motion. Despite some of their pontificating, I thank the Members opposite for tabling it. You would nearly believe that they had not recently been in the Executive, but we will leave that aside, because the people in our communities need us to be working together. I am interested to hear the Opposition's plans: I am no apologist for the Executive, but I have not heard the Opposition's alternatives. It is undeniable that Northern Ireland is in the midst of a housing emergency. The figures and statistics, which represent real people, speak for themselves. As of March this year, 47,312 households were on the social housing waiting list. That represents a 1·8% increase from December and a 4·9% rise from last year. To put that number in context, it would fill our national football stadium, Windsor Park, two times over. Twice. I have sat in that stadium many times and seen the size and scale of it. The number of households on the social housing waiting list would fill it twice. Is that the true reality of our housing crisis? I ask that because I have delved deeper into it, as have other Members, and have had many constituents come to me, time and time again, to highlight that they have been taken off the housing waiting list because they did not receive a letter to renew their application or do not recall receiving one. Therefore, I question whether the statistics before us are a true reality of our housing crisis. The number on the social housing waiting list represents individuals and families who are living in overcrowded conditions, sofa-surfing, sleeping on floors or stuck in temporary accommodation — if they can get it — that is far from schools, work and their support networks, upon which many of them rely. We must recognise social housing as the critical public service that it is and recognise that it requires a plan of action. While meaningful change will take time, we must lay the foundations now for building solutions to the crisis. The key to addressing the housing emergency is to build more homes, but, as other Members have stated, simply building more homes is not the sole solution to the problem. An ambitious target of delivering at least 5,000 social homes per year is required, but we cannot say that in isolation: we need to create the conditions to build up to that. As I have said, simply building more homes will not be enough on its own. We must adopt a place-shaping approach by integrating housing with local infrastructure, services and amenities for the benefit of entire communities. We must create homes not just houses, learning from global examples in which integration has been a success. Adequate financial resources are essential. Empowering the Northern Ireland Housing Executive to borrow is key to its investing in existing housing stock and building new homes. Reforming the planning system, which my colleague the Deputy Chair of the Infrastructure Committee will touch on in more detail shortly, is vital to speeding up approval for social and affordable housing. Public land, particularly derelict land such as that identified by the BUILD project in the greater Shankill, should be made available for mixed-tenure housing. There are many examples of projects like BUILD that have done tremendous work to highlight the plight of dereliction across that community. We need a proportionate rethink of how we assess housing need in areas. There is available land. We need to be proportionate and balanced in how we address that. Community involvement in the planning process is crucial. Local stakeholders should help to identify suitable locations, and affordability must be at the heart of new projects. The Minister for Communities is not here, but I look forward to hearing from his colleague, who used to be in the post, on the proposals that he intends to bring forward. We have the intermediate rent offering coming forward, but, again, that, on its own, will not be enough to address the crisis that is before us. We need to look at how we can scale up that project and deliver more. Almost 20 years ago, in a presentation to the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs, representatives of housing bodies here highlighted the scale of the crisis, but it seems that what they said was either unheeded or the steps and measures that were taken at that point were not sufficient to address the challenges that Northern Ireland faced. Standing still is not an option. We owe it to future generations to act now by setting clear targets, increasing funding and utilising public land effectively. The Good Friday Agreement laid the foundations for peace, but we have failed to build on those foundations when it comes to housing and so many other aspects of public life. Now is the time to right that wrong.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:26 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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