Debate contribution: Unadopted Housing Developments and Roads

Debate contribution by Mr Keith Buchanan on 11 November 2024.

MLA

Mr Keith Buchanan

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 4668190

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I do not think that it will take me 10 minutes. I am going to rattle through this very quickly, because, to be fair, other comments have covered it. I was looking at my notes, and I think that some of you have spotted them and taken notes from them. A lot of points have been covered, but I will make a point broadly. I have dealt with several of these issues, from Maghera right down to Newmills in Mid Ulster. The Minister talked about 82%, I think that it was, if I am correct, of developments having no issues. Not all developers are bad. It is only very few, and I think that they just need a little bit of focus at times. We are all guilty of it. There are probably some phone calls that you did not make today that you should have made this morning, and you put the awkward ones off until tonight. You are all smiling. Developers just need a little bit of focus, a little push or a little bit of persuasion. They are not all bad. That has to be taken into account, because I do not want to be referenced in those remarks. I will briefly go through the comments that different Members made. Deborah Erskine referred to health and safety issues and mobility issues. There are a large number of people in those affected houses across Northern Ireland. The Minister, to be fair, touched on the value of the bond. We talked about article 11 being instigated and the current legislative upgrade of that. Gerry Carroll talked about health and safety issues. Moving heavy wheelie bins is a big thing, believe it or not. A lot of people are moving large wheelie bins down to the end of their estate, which can be a fair distance. You get to some housing developments and there are 30 or 40 wheelie bins at the end of the estate. It is a big issue for people, and it is a very practical thing for them. Councils will not go up those estates; we know that. There are trip hazards, and they have done risk assessments etc. They will not go up there with a bin lorry to collect the bins. That is one issue relating to that. Gerry also talked about management companies charging for grass cutting etc in areas that are not adopted. That is a point, and I have heard that before in relation to many issues. He also talked about volunteers tidying up alleyways. Cathal Boylan referred to having inadequate funding for some developers. That goes back to that bond issue. That will be an interesting piece of work: how much does that bond actually need to be and how will you manage it, Minister, for three, five or seven years? It is difficult to get that piece of work correct, to have some control over it. Mark Durkan talked about the residents having to pick up the pieces: 147 unadopted developments in Derry and Strabane. I think that he referred to the community pride issue — it was Gerry's point as well — and about people having to go in and tidy up their own areas. There is nothing wrong with that, but they should not be the sole people to do that. They should not be tidying up something that has not already been, to some degree, tidied up. Ciara Ferguson talked about gritting, health and safety and developers going into liquidation. She mentioned funding from the UK Government. I do not know how that is relevant when the Department is not holding developers to account, but she made the point, which is valid enough. Stephen Dunne talked about high numbers in the southern division, selling properties and bond rate increases. Then I have written down "house-warming", so maybe Stephen is going to invite us down to his house-warming party.

We will put that in our diaries, if you give us the date, Stephen.

Send it out in time, if you do not mind. Andy McMurray talked about high numbers, developer responsibility and, again, the bond values. To be fair to Tom Buchanan — I am not defending Tom as my colleague — he made some good points about the installation work and building control only monitoring the pipework until it leaves the curtilage of the house. Who actually polices the developer? Not that they are all bad, but, sometimes, it is not tens of pounds or thousands of pounds but tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of pounds to put those issues right. Who is actually going to do that? It is about who polices that work outside the curtilage of the house. The houses are good enough to sell, but it seems that when you leave the curtilage of the house, the developer gets into a land of confusion and no responsibility. Some other very good points were made, such as checking the storm and foul pipework, getting meaningful enforcement and asking when that is going to happen. To be fair, the Minister covered most of those points. Phillip Brett talked about the criteria for enforcement action. Paula Bradshaw made the valid point that people are not going to shout to the media for obvious reasons; it is going to be counterproductive for them. The Minister is last in my notes. I usually refer to Gerry Carroll last, but he got his touch earlier. The Minister talked about the 92% that have no issues, which is fair enough, but that leaves 8%, which is still a lot and is a big issue for the people who live in those areas. The worrying part is that there is no funding stream to bridge the gap and to look at the bond levels. To summarise, it is about how you police the developers to make sure that they finish the work to a standard that does not leave people in the position that others are in now. It was a good debate: a lot of things were covered several times over, but most points were covered. The Minister has, to be fair, made some commitments.

1,032 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:35 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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