Debate contribution: Waste Water Infrastructure: East Belfast

Debate contribution by Mr David Brooks on 11 February 2025.

MLA

Mr David Brooks

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

11 February 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Waste Water Infrastructure: East Belfast

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4793900

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I agree with what both Members who have spoken have said. While increasing the focus on the matter, the Member, whom I thank for bringing this important topic to the House, will know that the issue is not new for us. Indeed, one of my earliest memories of my few years on Belfast City Council was when I was on the city growth and regeneration committee and NI Water attended to talk about the living with water programme. They rolled out on the desk a massive map of Belfast that had different shades of red according to the risk that different areas faced. There, on the map, one small spot of the deepest, darkest red happened to sit right over my house, which was a matter of yards from the current Sydenham pumping station. It was emphasised to us then just how unfit the Sydenham station was, how regularly it broke down and required emergency maintenance and what effect it could have on residents if the maintenance was not successful or if the problem was beyond repair. I have been aware of that for many years, going back to those council days, as I say. It was not surprising. As has been mentioned, that area had flooded before. I lived just off Park Avenue beside the station. It had flooded before, and, as Peter referenced, we, as representatives, whether in council or now as MLAs, constantly heard about issues with house insurance and so on. Those had been partly remedied by the works that had been undertaken at Orangefield Park to reroute the river and slow the flow there. That helped some of those residents to get back some of that insurance.

Excepting local residents, there was a degree of ignorance, at times, about the catastrophic effect that the failure of the pumping station would have on the local population, given that it serves 6% of the population. We were all glad to hear that work was beginning on the new pumping station beside the King George V playing fields. It was positive to see that work was starting to progress, and, therefore, it was alarming and disappointing to be informed recently that, because of the pause in the living with water programme, the work had been paused and the development mothballed. I worked with residents and representatives of NI Water to get it through the planning process, and I am interested to hear from Northern Ireland Water and the Department about what, they believe, the real impact of delaying the project will be and whether they see it beginning again in the foreseeable future. The notification that we received noted, worryingly, a lack of capital budget until 2033, and I hope that the Minister will tell us that the work will move forward sooner than that. The local residents will return to such questions if there are any future flooding issues as a result of station failure, but more likely, and unseen, is the continuing and devastating effect on the lough and the environment. The promised plan of maintenance is scant consolation and seems to be the kind of maintenance that is routinely needed at the Sydenham site to keep it running. Not replacing the facility is clearly a false economy and brings significant risks on multiple fronts. Whilst we have heard about the significant crisis at Lough Neagh, the focus should not entirely be on that area. We do not want to see a situation where focus elsewhere leads to a similar crisis in Belfast lough. The wider water infrastructure is clearly in a state of crisis, but the Sydenham station is more in need than most. As has been referenced, it was at the heart of the 'Spotlight' programme in December. The 'Spotlight' programme also discovered a lack of testing outside the peak bathing season, which was hiding the reality of pollution on the beaches around the lough. With the growing interest in sea swimming, paddleboarding and other activities, we need to know what people are being exposed to, and perhaps DAERA should look more closely at that issue. Indeed, last year, my colleague Cheryl Brownlee asked us to take a dip in Belfast lough when she opened her office with a Dip for Diabetes event. If I had been better informed about what I was dipping into, I might have been slower to join the event. However, many do swim, and the programme showed that the swimmers are concerned about what they are swimming in. That probably needs to be addressed cross-departmentally. As my colleague Joanne Bunting said, it is also a serious issue for the development of our city, the growth of our economy, jobs and homes for young families. The Belfast Agenda wants 66,000 more people to live in our city centre, and there is an ambition to have more energy-efficient dwellings, but it is all being held back by our ageing water infrastructure. I fear that we are, in effect, beginning to outsource our water infrastructure to private developers, which means that developing small numbers of homes on small patches of land — what we generally have in East Belfast — can become financially unviable. That will drive up the cost of housing for first-time buyers and for those seeking to build or benefit from social and affordable homes and will add to the dilapidation in East Belfast. One example is on Tower Street, where Choice Housing has ambitions to develop much-needed social and affordable homes, and that is being held up largely due to the lack of a fit-for-purpose water management system. It is an example of where we know that plans have been delayed and halted, but many smaller sites of dilapidation have not been purchased or had plans submitted because the current dispensation means that any development would not be financially viable. I am coming to the limit of my time, and I will leave it there.

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

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:01 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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