CEF gives evidence to Committee for Infrastructure

21 January 2026  Business Environment Infrastructure Housing

CEF has given evidence to the NI Assembly’s Committee for Infrastructure on the Water, Sustainable Drainage and Flood Management Bill and the urgent challenges facing the construction sector related to severe constraints in water and wastewater capacity alongside our industry colleagues from Antrim Construction Company Ltd., Marrac Design and Turley. 

 WATCH THE COMMITTEE SESSION HERE STARTING 32:00

Opening statement to Infrastructure Committee, 21 January

Thank you Chair and Committee for the opportunity to give evidence today on the Water, Sustainable Drainage and Flood Management Bill. My name is Mark Spence, and I am Chief Executive of the Construction Employers Federation. I am joined today by David Magee from Antrim Construction, Sam McKee from Turley, Mark Hardy from Marrac Design and David Fry from the CEF who you will be familiar with from the Committee’s visit to Antrim Construction’s Belmont Hall development in December.

We are supportive of the introduction of the Bill and look forward to its passage as an Act before the end of this Assembly mandate. Specifically, on the subject of SuDS, it is our strong view that, done rightly, they can provide much better amenity for homeowners and occupiers.

Reflecting on the separate consultation being undertaken by DfI on SuDS guidance, we note that this Bill has the intent of giving DfI the power to mandate soft SuDS and that, therefore, the importance of the guidance consultation (and others that will follow) must be a major focus for the Committee beyond the end of its Bill scrutiny as this is where more fundamental issues will be considered.

From our engagement with DfI officials, we believe that those areas of most significance can be narrowed down to:

·       Firstly, ‘who’ should be the SuDS approval body – notwithstanding the good intentions of the Storm Water Management Group, the timescales of its processes with respect to the existing soft SuDS pilots were too long. We have suggested that an appropriately resourced DfI Rivers may be a suitable place for this to reside going forward.

·       Secondly, the importance of design guidance for developers and how this will be embraced by all planning authorities – while open to pilots in different council areas, homebuilders cannot be in a scenario where each planning authority takes a completely different approach to soft SuDS and DfI’s powers with respect to the enforceability of any guidance must be clear. An essential element to this will be how planning authorities will treat designated SuDS areas during the construction of any development. In our view, these could be appropriately used as a silt management pit to comply with any agreed construction management plan.

·       Thirdly, the need for clarity on policy implementation timelines – many homebuilders will be looking to buy land now for development in 3+ years. The proposed timescales for soft SuDS implementation contained within the current guidance consultation are suggestive of a crossover and homebuilders need clarity – now - on whether those timescales will be met.

·       Fourthly, it is crucial that SuDS count as open space – our estimate is that on any major site (such as that at Belmont Hall in Antrim) approximately two acres of land would need to be set aside for features such as ponds. With 10% of development land normally set aside for open space on major developments, it is therefore vital that such features are included as open space so that we do not unduly further curtail housing development with this needing to be mandated across all planning authorities.

·       Fifthly, on application and maintenance costs – linked to the purchase of sites is also their viability. Work must be expedited on what DfI believe these costs would look like and whether their preference for a Welsh-type model is likely to proceed. It is vital that policies around maintenance and adoption are clear and robust at the very outset and are not subject to undue interpretation.

·       Sixthly, the need for clarity around extent of soft SuDS on sites – we are given to understand by DfI that, due to the proposed schedule of uplifts in Building Regulations, the Department of Finance has requested that property-level SuDS are not advanced at this stage. We would ask that that matter is fully clarified as the detailed policy development on SuDS guidance is advanced.

·       Finally, the importance of retrofitting – reflecting on the Infrastructure Minister’s three-pronged approach, we again reinforce the point that mandatory soft SuDS on new housing developments will do little to resolve our housing crisis as it relates to wastewater capacity. What does, however, offer more potential is the retrofitting of existing assets which we understand is a proposed part of NI Water’s PC28 plan as well as being included as an initial £15m allocation from the Public Sector Transformation Fund. We look forward to such retrofitting proposals being significantly advanced as we move towards the commencement of PC28.

Returning, Chair, briefly to the wider context that these proposals sit within – namely the Infrastructure Minister’s three-pronged approach – and in light of the discussion during the Committee’s meeting last week, we retain our clear view that addressing our wastewater infrastructure deficit requires a step-change in approach by DfI and the wider NI Executive.

On developer contributions, we are supportive of the proposals relating to the enabling of voluntary contributions where developers could make the commercial choice as to whether they would seek to upgrade an existing NI Water asset to enable development. However, we would be equally clear that this would be extremely limited in overall impact.

On the matter of the funding of NI Water we, along with colleagues in the NI Chamber and NI Federation of Housing Associations published a report last June, based on research conducted by Grant Thornton and Turley Economics, on how an Infrastructure Levy could deal with NI Water’s funding gap and create a long-term sustainable, multi-year investment model to take forward stalled housing, industrial and regeneration projects as well as dealing with increasing environmental challenges.

As members will be aware, we have this week updated the figures from our report last year to take account of NI Water’s anticipated submission to the Utility Regulator ahead of PC28, the figures produced in the Draft Budget as well as the Department for Infrastructure’s baseline allocation to NI Water of £321m per annum.

Against this we have identified a £1.29bn funding gap in PC28 which would equate to an average Infrastructure Levy of £1.25 per household per week amounting to an average £65 per year. Taking forward such a Levy would lead to a borrowing repayment of £55.9m a year.

Crucially, our proposals would not alter the existing governance status of NI Water as it would retain at least £400m per annum of public subvention thus ensuring its public ownership.

Our proposal, which is progressive in nature, protects those most vulnerable in our society while also charting a sustainable path towards dealing with an issue which is now the principal inhibitor to economic growth and accelerant of environmental decline that we face.