Debate contribution: Dilapidation Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 1 July 2025.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

1 July 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Dilapidation Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5061360

Read the official Assembly record

Text

We are all feeling a little dilapidated, Mr Deputy Speaker: it is the end of the Assembly term. I will concentrate my remarks on the Dilapidation Bill, speaking on behalf of the Opposition. I am not on the AERA Committee, but I will make some brief remarks on the Bill, the principles of which we support. It is a detailed, long Bill. Committee members and the Committee Chair have clearly set it out that a Bill that has 30-plus clauses, as well as schedules, will need to be understood in detail. It creates new responsibilities or powers for councils. We specifically need to understand how precisely it will work and what support, if any, be it via guidance or financial support, the Executive will give councils to make that happen. The Minister said that the Bill provides that, in issuing dilapidation notices, emergency action notices, dangerous structure notices and all the rest, a council may recover costs from the people who own the properties that have fallen into dereliction. Clearly, in some cases, they will be persons or entities in respect of whom, if they hold derelict assets, there might be significant difficulties in recovering costs because of the status of such assets. It will be helpful to understand how the Minister sees that playing out and how exactly it will work if there are logistical or legal challenges to a council in recovering costs.

First, I remind my colleague that I am not a Minister. That is the whole point. Yes, he is right: there are such buildings in the public estate, one of which is the actual Minister's former departmental building, Dundonald House, just a short walk from here. I do not know whether it is formally dilapidated or derelict yet, but, if you go for a lunchtime run down there, you will see that it seems pretty close to that. Dereliction and dilapidation are close to most of us, as local representatives, because we can see them, quite literally, on our streets and high streets. For people in both urban and rural communities, dilapidation is, in many ways, the physical manifestation of a sense that the community in which they live either is not getting enough support or is not what it should be and is not living up to its potential. It then has all sorts of other consequences for economic development that will be, I am sure, well aired in the debate. It can form a negative downward spiral by dissuading people from going to said high street for hospitality, retail or other community use. That then causes a negative downward spiral in the economic potential of an area. As Mr Butler, the Committee Chair, said, it can incentivise or at least facilitate certain types of antisocial behaviour. It can have a real impact if it provides for dangerous situations where there is, for example, significant antisocial behaviour or drug use. That can then facilitate all sorts of negative public health and antisocial consequences. It is an extraordinarily broad area. I would welcome hearing more from the Minister about how he sees the Bill fitting into the broader work on dereliction. From listening to his remarks, it struck me that, when we think about the dereliction and dilapidation of high streets, although it does not exclusively affect high streets, we have specific challenges in areas where economic development is an issue. The Economy Department is, obviously, responsible for economic development. It convened the high street task force, which, sadly, is no more. The Finance Department is responsible for the rates system, which is a huge part of this, and I will talk about that in one second. The Infrastructure Department is responsible for the maintenance of highways. Sometimes dilapidated buildings create issues for highways and other street architecture, particularly if there is falling masonry. The Communities Department is responsible for the built environment and regeneration. There are multiple examples of where the Communities Department is responsible for regeneration projects and is, effectively, the development partner for properties that are either dilapidated or becoming dilapidated. It will need what we are, frankly, abysmal at in this place: genuine cross-departmental working. The SDLP Opposition welcomes the Bill as a step forward. Scrutiny will be done in Committee to understand precisely how all the powers will work, how councils can apply them and what the consequences will be.

I would also welcome hearing from the Minister about how he sees the Bill feeding into what should be broader Executive work on supporting high streets and preventing dereliction and all the associated points. As I said, the Bill touches on a range of areas of responsibility, so there should really be joined-up working. The high street task force, were it still to exist, would have been the obvious place in which some of the issues could have been taken forward. The outworkings of the Dilapidation Bill would, I am sure, have been of interest to the task force. I will give an example in the city that I represent. Mr Butler mentioned Hilden Mill in his constituency. Painting a picture for people who are watching the debate on the Bill will help them link it to places in their area. The Opposition brought a motion to the House about a chronic piece of facilitated dereliction and dilapidation in the middle of Belfast in Miss McAllister and Mr Brett's constituency. It is called Tribeca. It is in the heart of one of the most vibrant, economically and culturally rich parts of this city and this island. No one can say to me that Tribeca, if it theoretically had cultural hospitality and people living there, with all sorts of community opportunities, could not be a going concern. No one can say to me that it is not economically achievable. It is economically achievable, but the current owners have allowed a set of properties to fall into structured and supported dereliction and dilapidation. I do not ask the Minister to speculate about that site, as that would not be proper. I have said, however, that Belfast City Council should have powers in such a situation. It has vesting powers, but the dilapidation powers in the Bill would better enable the council to step in aggressively and try to rescue all or part of that project. What has happened is indefensible. As you walk down North Street and Donegall Street, you see this amazing place, full of rich history, where the Belfast Enlightenment happened and where the Assembly Rooms are. All our political, cultural and intellectual traditions have a presence in that part of the city, yet we have allowed it to fall into structured dereliction. Our rates system has incentivised that. The Bill is not about the rates system, but the two are inextricably linked. Bluntly, our rates system incentivises continued dereliction. We have vacant property relief, which is very generous. I want there to be some form of property tax relief that incentivises people who have vacant properties to find new uses for them, but our system seems to subsidise such properties indefinitely as they fall into dereliction. I will wait to hear whether the Minister has anything to say about that and to hear whether the Bill will help facilitate a broader piece of work being done. In our rates system, vacant property relief effectively exists until a place is ineligible to pay tax because it no longer has any obvious economic use and is dilapidated. Does the Minister think that that issue should be covered in the Dilapidation Bill? I will give a couple of examples in my constituency. On Botanic Avenue, just around the corner from my constituency office, what used to be the Botanic Lodge guest house lies derelict. I have no idea why that is so, and I make no comment on the individuals who own it. Mr Speaker, you may draw me back to the specifics of the Bill, but I would like to see Belfast City Council and other councils look at properties like that and say, "Hang on. This building is right in the middle of a culturally and commercially critical part of our district. Why the hell has it been allowed to fall into structured and facilitated dereliction and dilapidation?". I hope that the Bill creates extra powers for councils. Dereliction is happening not just on Botanic Avenue but in parts of what is called the Linen Quarter: inner South Belfast, Great Victoria Street and Shaftesbury Square. There is huge vibrancy there, as well as one of the world's great universities. People come from all over the world to study and socialise and to experience the area, but there is too much dereliction. It is a blight on our hospitality offer and on economic development more generally. I hope that the Bill can be part of a broader effort to tackle and clamp down on dilapidation. My colleague on the Committee for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs will scrutinise it in detail. At this stage, however, we support the Dilapidation Bill.

1,509 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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