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Grainia Long is chief executive of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive
Working in partnership to unlock city centre residential development
Grainia Long reflects on what breaking ground on the new Loft Lines development means for Belfast
The announcement of a partnership to build 778 new homes in Belfast city centre marks the beginning of a new generation of residents living in the urban core.
Unless you know Belfast, you might wonder why this is gaining such attention. All over the UK, cities prioritise new housebuilding to attract skills, investment and drive sustainable economic growth. This is hardly new. Yet, for years, Belfast has not managed to do this. In fact, as recently as 2020-21, just 23 new homes were completed in the city centre.
As a result of its recent history, Belfast has been an outlier in housing terms: failing to add new homes to its city core.
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Thankfully, city partners recognised this was unsustainable and to the detriment of Belfast’s inclusive economic growth ambitions.
Over recent years, my organisation, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE), with the Department for Communities, Belfast City Council, Land and Property Services, Belfast Harbour Commissioners and many more, have been working together, as community planning partners, to identify the levers necessary to unlock residential development in the city.
The Belfast Agenda, the community plan for the city, spearheaded by Belfast City Council with its partners, has been a critical driver in setting an ambitious target for new housebuilding.
“Twenty-five years after the Good Friday Agreement, Belfast’s residents are right to aspire to a sustainable, thriving and shared city”
However, setting targets is never enough to guarantee delivery.
Unlocking barriers to development requires collaboration, and it has meant all partners identifying the powers and levers at their disposal, and putting them to work. While statutory organisations have played a key role, the ambition for a generation of well-designed and sustainable homes cannot be achieved without the private and independent sectors too.
This week’s announcement by Lacuna Developments of a partnership with L&G and Watkin Jones to construct 778 new homes is an exciting venture between private investors, the construction industry and Clanmil Housing alongside the NIHE and the Department for Communities.
As the strategic housing authority and a regional placeshaper, the NIHE supported the planning application, informed by our assessment of local housing need, and has been working with the Department for Communities to ensure that approximately 81 social housing units are included in the development.
This will provide the residents of Belfast with an opportunity to live, work and play in the centre of a growing and thriving city, next to the iconic Titanic Belfast landmark. As a mixed-tenure development and a genuinely shared space, it will be the first time a city-centre waiting list is used to allocate social homes, affording additional choice to people on the waiting list for social housing.
“Unlocking barriers to development requires collaboration, and it has meant all partners identifying the powers and levers at their disposal, and putting them to work”
It will also ensure that the city centre benefits in the same way as other parts of Belfast, and indeed other parts of Northern Ireland. Housing has huge social potential; it creates thriving communities and helps to drive other social and economic infrastructure.
In 2022-23, the NIHE supported the completion of 405 social homes in Belfast, and invested more than £300m in housing across the city, whether through investment in our own homes, housing benefit to support households in the private sector, or grants to improve private-sector housing.
This week’s announcement is, I hope, the first of many. Twenty-five years after the Good Friday Agreement, Belfast’s residents are right to aspire to a sustainable, thriving and shared city.
I am grateful to our city partners for recognising and valuing the role housing can play in local economic growth. As cities and towns across Northern Ireland plan sustainable growth, I look forward to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive playing its part, enabling them to build beautiful homes for future generations.
Grainia Long, chief executive, Northern Ireland Housing Executive
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