Debate contribution: Unadopted Housing Developments and Roads

Debate contribution by Mrs Deborah Erskine on 11 November 2024.

MLA

Mrs Deborah Erskine

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

11 November 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Unadopted Housing Developments and Roads

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4668041

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

At the outset, I declare an interest as a homeowner living in an unadopted housing development. Today's motion is nothing new to the Chamber, but it is an issue that I know Members deal with on a regular and frequent basis. To date, we have been unable to fully implement a road map on it. We are failing our constituents if we do not act on the issue. We must make progress on it in the here and now and in this mandate. I feel strongly about the issue, and I know all too well about the impact that it has on homeowners. That is why I am developing my private Member's Bill on it. Roads and footpaths have been left for decades without adoption. It is not just the fact that they are aesthetically unappealing; they are a major health and safety concern, from the potholes that damage vehicles, to the poorly lit streets that increase the risk of accidents and the footpaths that are so poorly maintained that they pose a risk to pedestrians, particularly those with mobility issues. The neglect of those developments has far-reaching consequences. The residents who have done nothing wrong other than buy a home in a development that they believed would be finished are left carrying the financial and emotional weight of unfinished work. However, the situation is even more troubling. Unadopted housing developments are contributing to environmental damage. We have seen how unfinished and unadopted sewerage systems and drainage networks are affecting our waterways and polluting the very environment that we all depend on. Beyond the environmental and safety concerns, a very real and urgent issue faces homeowners who wish to sell their properties. Unadopted infrastructure makes properties difficult, if not impossible, to sell. Many buyers are wary of purchasing homes that are in developments in which roads and paths are not adopted and where they would be left financially liable for the costs of repairs and upgrades. That creates a stagnant housing market for affected communities and places an unnecessary burden on homeowners who are unable to move forward with their life. In order to protect homeowners, we need to have an enhancement of property certificates to offer greater protections when those properties are being resold. Therefore, I am calling for a clear and strategic plan to address the backlog of unadopted roads in order to ensure that legacy sites are identified and prioritised for adoption. It is crucial that the Minister works alongside Northern Ireland Water, councils and other relevant bodies to identify the sites and ensure that they are brought up to an adoptable standard without further delay. We will support Mr Carroll's amendment. In Northern Ireland, there are 1,868 unadopted sites. I obtained the list of housing developments across the country. It is a substantial document that highlights each street and development, behind the names of which are those who are in the predicament of having poor infrastructure right outside their door. Hundreds of thousands of residents across Northern Ireland are affected. Quite rightly, residents are angry. "I pay my rates and my taxes", is a cry that I hear often. They are right. Many work hard, do their jobs for a living and have bought a house in good faith. I will give an example. A person who bought their house 30 years ago complained about a pothole in their development, but it turns out that it cannot be fixed because the development is unadopted. Another prime example is a first-time homebuyer. The first phase of the development goes live, they purchase, and they know, as anyone would, that, whilst building work may go on, on another stage in the development phase, they have the hope that, one day, the development, which is in construction, will be completed, and they will have street lighting, better footpaths and roads. However, a year or two after all the construction has finished, houses are built and purchased, everybody starts to notice that nothing has changed. We might get a call to our constituency offices from residents in the development, checking in to see what the relevant authorities are saying, but it becomes clear that the residents are living on an unadopted site. In the majority of cases, it could be a simple matter that it is an elongated process, but, for a huge proportion, there seems to be an issue that brings logjam to the process. Developers believe that the bond that they have in place is sufficient. Meanwhile, at the end of the development construction period, DFI or NI Water attest that it is not. The developer, in most cases, points to the fact that the guarantee bond is a tripartite agreement between the developer, their bank insurer, which provides the funding for the bond element, and DFI and NI Water. The value of the bond is determined by DFI and NI Water and is based on what costs they would incur if required to complete works. I recognise that there is already legislation whereby, if construction of a private street is not progressing properly, DFI can intervene and issue a notice under article 11 of the Private Streets (NI) Order 1980, which requires the execution of all works necessary to bring the street into conformity with the regulations. If the notice is not complied with, DFI/NI Water can proceed to carry out work using contractors and recover the cost of the work from the bond and bring the roads and sewers up to an adoptable standard. However, how many cases has that happened in? It seems to me that powers are not being implemented and, indeed, that they are not tough enough. There is no redress for homeowners. In fact, they are the middleman stuck in a back-and-forth between the developer, DFI and NI Water, and that is if you are lucky enough that the developer is still in business. Where the bond is not sufficient to bring the development into an adoptable standard and they have ceased trading, DFI and NI Water have no funding mechanism or legal responsibility, I understand, to bridge the shortfall between the bond and the cost of the necessary works. That leaves homeowners literally picking up the pieces of the broken streets and footpaths, and, even worse, the site reverts to the homeowners. We have been here debating this issue before. In 2012, a former Assembly Committee, which was then the Committee for Regional Development, held an inquiry into unadopted roads. It was then estimated that it would take £300 million to bring roads up to an adoptable standard and somewhere between £41 million and £100 million — quite a range there — to allow for adoptable sewerage and waste water schemes. What does the Department believe that the costings will be now? In 2021, the Infrastructure Committee brought a motion to the Assembly that pointed out the lack of progress made in addressing the failures in adopting sites since the report in 2012. It called on the Minister to formulate and implement a more robust and time-constrained package of guidance and enforcement. I ask the Minister this: what has his Department done since, and why has that crucial element not been addressed? Time is critical. I have seen situations in which housing developments have been built, homes purchased, developers go bust and leave homeowners in the lurch; or, indeed, developers go bust and then, frustratingly, pop up in another area or, as is the case in the past, even just down the street from the last unadopted site, under a different company, and start building again. That brings me to a key question: how is that allowed to happen? In my view, developers should face a penalty for that. Poor infrastructure is surely something that nobody in the Chamber wants to see outside the doors of our constituents.

We need a review of the main statutory instruments. The Private Streets (Northern Ireland) Order 1980 and the Private Streets (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 1992 are outdated and require amending in order to update them, to ensure that they offer protection to consumers and, furthermore, to ensure that they adequately address the issues that surround unfinished developments and roads. I trust that Members will join me in calling for greater action and urgency on this matter this evening in the Chamber.

1,392 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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