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Sector hopeful of billions for NIHE stock
Housing associations are hopeful billions of pounds of private investment will be pumped into Northern Ireland Housing Executive homes to bring them up to standard as a result of the Stormont Agreement.
Cameron Watt, chief executive Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations, said the ‘fresh start’ agreement, signed in November following a political deadlock that halted progress on the Department for Social Development’s social housing reform programme, had paved the way for significant borrowing in order to spend on stock in poor condition.
He said: “There is an urgent need to bring all Housing Executive homes up to a good standard, currently there’s a big funding gap.
“The agreement says that all parties are committed to potentially significant reform of the Housing Executive to enable the funding to be raised to bring all homes up to an acceptable standard.
“We hope that in 2016 significant progress will be made on the social housing reform programme, so that we can get the structures in place to borrow privately to invest significantly in the stock. We’re talking about probably billions of pounds over the next 10 years that needs to be invested.”
Mr Watt’s comments came after Derek Hussey, a councillor for Derry City & Strabane District Council, warned a large proportion of Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) homes could have inadequate cavity wall insulation.
He said a NIHE-commissioned survey of cavity wall insulation in 206 of its properties revealed over 90% needed remedial work.
“My perspective would be if that is the norm across the country, that’s extremely worrying,” he said.
Mr Hussey has urged the NIHE to outline plans to deal with the problem.
A NIHE spokesperson said: “It is the intention to bring forward programmes of work related to insulation for properties which have been identified by our recent stock condition survey as in most need.
“This work will require focus on the significant number of properties which have, to date, not benefited from any insulation work.
The NIHE said a programme to take representative samples to determine the condition of existing cavity wall insulation would be undertaken.
Savills recently undertook a large-scale stock condition survey for the NIHE. The results will be used to develop a long-term strategy, expected to be agreed in early 2016.
