Debate contribution: Waste Water Infrastructure: East Belfast

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 11 February 2025.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

11 February 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Waste Water Infrastructure: East Belfast

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4793905

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I welcome the opportunity to talk about waste water infrastructure specifically in East Belfast, and I will do so. People might predict talk about waste water infrastructure in the city more widely and, indeed, in Northern Ireland more widely, but there is a particular issue in East Belfast. Members have talked about specific challenges around the Sydenham pumping station and specific developments. There are long-standing issues that have been created by, perhaps, some poor planning decisions in the past decades around zoning. Perhaps, some of the decisions that were taken at Castlereagh Council, way back in the day, are ones that we could re-examine. It is important to say that there is a crisis in our waste water infrastructure across Northern Ireland. There is now a new Minister, and I welcome her to her place. It is not a small brief that she has taken on, and waste water is, clearly, vital, along with all the other things, including the state of our roads and our rail network. There really is, however, a pressing crisis with waste water infrastructure. First, I will talk about some of the concerns in the east of Belfast and elsewhere in the city. It is clear that, in parts of the city, development is being held up. As is the case across Northern Ireland, there are very real concerns about water quality. There are real concerns about the impact that it is having on getting planning decisions over the line. In the southern end of my constituency around Carryduff, we have been awaiting work starting on sewage outflow pumping stations, as that has been holding up development. Really small-scale planning decisions are being held up by our water infrastructure. In some cases, it is big developments of hundreds of houses, and, in other cases, it is literally the tiniest bits of routine planning that are being held up by our water infrastructure. It cannot be a defensible or sustainable position for any modern European city that, because of the absence of water infrastructure, cafes cannot get basic extensions, shops cannot extend their premises and we cannot have small-scale housing developments where zoning has already happened. That cannot be a defensible situation. Specific concerns were mentioned around the water quality in Belfast lough. That is hugely concerning. It is not going to become another Lough Neagh because it is a sea lough, not an inland lake, so it has different ecological conditions, but, my God, anything like what happened at Lough Neagh would be a catastrophe. Mr Brooks said that he does not want all the attention on Lough Neagh. I would quite like some more attention on Lough Neagh, to be honest, because I do not think that what the Executive or the Environment Minister have announced thus far is anywhere near ambitious enough to deal with Lough Neagh. I certainly do not want to see a situation in which, given the amazing sea lough, with huge commercial, economic and ecological significance, that is Belfast lough, we continue down the road that it is going down, where the failure to invest in waste water is condemning it to be a tidal cesspool, to be perfectly honest. We cannot get to that situation, because that is close to where we are with Lough Neagh, let us be blunt about it. For a large part — not exclusively — of that situation at Lough Neagh, agriculture has been a significant driver. Waste water in Belfast is creating problems in Belfast, so we need to hear from the Minister what the investment plans are. The living with water programme has been referenced. I would like an update on the living with water programme and the investment in it, some of which has been progressed. Some of the living with water programme at a Belfast level has been stalled. Also, I have been made aware — I have asked questions for written answer about this — that the living with water board has been paused or has been stood down. I would like to know more about that. I would like to know what is happening with the entirety of that programme. There is a bigger question, and it really matters. It is one that I would like the Minister to give attention to and perhaps tell us more about today. Her predecessor mooted something called the developer charge. He did it in the media, and he did in the Chamber. He said that his officials were looking at it. I presume that some of those officials are in the Chamber today. I have no idea what that means beyond the phrase "developer charge". People will have understandable concerns about the impact that that might have on the price of houses, but lots of people also had an open mind on what that might mean for investment in our waste water infrastructure. The Chair of the Committee for Infrastructure is here. People wanted to know what it meant. There are basically three options: an additional charge on developers, which is indirect and would go on the cost; new domestic charges, which have been ruled out — there could be additional non-domestic charges, but I am not sure that our hard-pressed businesses would be keen on that; or continuing with the current funding model, which simply takes money out of other parts of the Executive's capital budget. The previous Minister and his colleague, the previous Finance Minister, who is now the Economy Minister, both said that the funding model was fit for purpose. The implication of that is that they are happy just to continue funding it out of the block grant in capital terms. If that is the position, we need to see ambition in the long term about how much of the capital budget goes into waste water. There will be a consequential, whether that is in less money going elsewhere, in other revenue raising or in more creative use of financial transactions capital. We need answers to these questions. They are reasonable questions We cannot simply plod along and say that the funding model is fit for purpose as Lough Neagh and, increasingly, Belfast lough turn into cesspools. We cannot get houses built or —.

I will give way. I will not get an extra minute, will I?

I did not just blame agriculture —.

Thank you very much. I did not just blame just agriculture and would not do so, because it is more complicated than that. Agriculture is clearly a contributor. When we say "agriculture", we do not mean every farmer. We are talking about overloading our soil with nutrients. It is completely unarguable that that has caused some of the issues in Lough Neagh, but the Member is totally right that failure to invest in and deal with waste water infrastructure has been a major driver of what has happened in Lough Neagh; I will not disagree with her there. The key point is that we need clarity on what the plan is. It comes back to what we, as the Opposition, repeatedly say in the Chamber: we need a plan. It will not be fixed overnight. We are talking about long-term underinvestment in waste water infrastructure, so I do not expect the Minister to fix that by herself in her term of office — her successor, her successor's successor and so on will have to keep dealing with it all — but I would like to hear her plans first of all to deal with the issues we face in Belfast and how they are holding up development, and also the water quality in Belfast lough. In the longer term, what is the plan? Are we to understand that the Executive simply think that —

— we can continue with this funding model forever and a day?

1,304 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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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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