Housing commitment in Programme for Government will not fix our housing crisis
9 September 2024 Business Environment Housing
Commenting after the publication
of the NI Executive's draft Programme for Government, Mark Spence, Chief
Executive of the Construction Employers Federation said:
"While the commitment in the
draft Programme for Government to provide more social, affordable and
sustainable housing is to be welcomed, it falls drastically short of what is
needed in order to deal with Northern Ireland's housing crisis.
"The Executive doesn't appear
to have fully understood that against a backdrop of a 60-year low of housing
completions in 2023 - a record likely to be eclipsed by a new low in 2024 -
fundamental reform is required to deal with the key blocks to growing
homebuilding.
"We believe it is crucial
that the Executive treats housing as its main priority for the rest of this
mandate because, if it does not, it risks removing from an entire generation
the prospect of a home to call their own.
“Given the Executive’s one-year
capital budget of £2bn for 2024/25 - the same in cash terms as some 17 years
ago – and a recurrent need from NI Water from this of at least £600m per annum
for the next decade, the Executive must face the urgent reality that the
overall settlement, and what is likely in the years ahead, goes nowhere near
the level required in order to deliver many of the key projects which form part
of the draft Programme for Government, never mind NI Water’s PC21 and PC27
programmes.
"Although further related
strategies such as the Executive's Investment Strategy and the Housing Supply
Strategy are yet to emerge, it is therefore vital that urgent steps are taken
to deal with:
- decades of underfunding in our water and wastewater system which means that
homebuilders cannot get new housing connections in large parts of the country
and;
- a planning system which is no longer fit for purpose.
"A fundamental test of any
government must be whether it puts in place the enablers for a necessary level
of newbuild housing to be delivered for its people. Currently, Northern Ireland
is falling woefully short on this and a failure to act would be a damning
indictment of this Executive's performance.