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MIPIM: young professionals driving BTR growth in Belfast despite lack of access to certain funding streams, says regeneration boss
Students and young professionals are driving growth in Belfast despite a lack of access to a number of funding streams that English and Welsh cities can access, a senior council employee has said.
On Thursday, Cathy Reynolds, director of city regeneration and development at Belfast Council, sat down with Inside Housing at the city delegation’s bright yellow tent on the beachfront for the MIPIM conference in Cannes, France.
She explained how the city has ambitious plans to expand its population by 66,000 people by 2035 and with that build just short of 33,000 homes.
Ms Reynolds said: “Ulster University moved into the city centre around three years ago and with that has come 18,000 students and staff, so there’s been a massive demand.
“There’s just short of 5,000 student accommodation places completed and around another 4,000 either in construction or in planning. That’s a big part of city centre living, but we also need to start planning so they have options to move on to, at the same time as delivering social and affordable housing.”
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MIPIM: we need to move beyond looking at housing in isolation, says chair of Southampton City RegionBelfast’s development plan requires a minimum of 20% affordable housing to be built on all new sites, and the city has a number of build-to-rent schemes being brought forward.
Ms Reynolds highlighted that Legal & General, the first institutional investor in the city, and Clanmil Housing Association are developing a build-to-rent (BTR) scheme with £155m.
The Loft Lines scheme at the Titanic Quarter, sold by developer Watkin Jones in partnership with investment firm Lacuna Developments, will comprise 627 BTR homes and 81 social rent homes.
The project is scheduled for delivery in summer 2026 and is expected to be the first BTR scheme in Northern Ireland.
The council is also looking for a master developer to bring forward work on a number of schemes worth £640m.
Ms Reynolds said investors at the international property event had been keen to hear about opportunities in tourism through hotel development and office space, and highlighted how some of this work was going on despite being unable to access a number of funding streams that English and Welsh cities can.
She added: “Belfast has viability issues similar to the rest of the UK but, unlike other cities, it doesn’t have access to funding streams around for brownfield, infrastructure and high street towns funds.
“So that puts us at somewhat of a disadvantage. One take away from me on the development side from speaking to other cities, is that a lot of this funding for brownfield and decarbonisation is necessary to make their schemes stack up.”
It was an issue that Ms Reynolds said the council would be raising at a political level. The new Northern Ireland communities minister Gordon Lyons recently said he would have a strategic focus on “big issues like housing” so that people “can have access to safe, warm and affordable homes”.
Earlier on the same day, the UK government’s champion for modern methods of construction told delegates that the flagship Affordable Homes Programme needs to be completely reset.
Inside Housing also spoke to a number of senior local authority leaders and housing professionals about how the investment they are seeking in Cannes aligns with their housebuilding and development ambitions.
Cardiff Council’s assistant director of development and regeneration spoke of the challenges of spending social housing grant and why MIPIM offers a chance to create growth and jobs across the region.
Meanwhile, the chair of the Southampton City region talked about the importance of moving away from looking at housing as an isolated problem and the need to build the right type of homes in the area.
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