Minister outlines plans for affordable housing

Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie has outlined her plans for tackling the issue of affordable housing.

The Minister announced a range of new measures to offset the lack of affordable housing including her plans for over 7,000 new builds over the next three years and the introduction of measures requiring private developers to include social housing in new schemes. Additional measures will see the implementation of a strategy to bring the 4,000 empty homes in Northern Ireland back into use and the introduction of rates on empty dwellings.

More social housing

Further measures include changing the provisions in PPS 14 to allow for more social housing to be built in rural areas, making the co-ownership scheme accessible to more people and providing all Housing Executive tenants with the chance to buy a share in their home.

The Minister stated that her first preference would be for all new builds to have mixed tenure and added,

“The future of housing lies in mixed tenure and in the provision of housing that will bring people together, not keep them apart.”

Cuts for housing associations

The Minister also stated that grant aid to housing associations would be cut by 10% and associations would be required to absorb this cut by ‘making better use of their assets and by introducing more private finance’. The Minister added that this cut,

“Will provide me with a significant resource that I would not otherwise have had. I hope that that will be invested in the social housing develop­ment programme in order to build houses for those who are in need.”

Environmental impact

Minister Ritchie also revealed that new builds would be required to be 25% more environmentally efficient and announced that the site of the old Grosvenor Barracks in Enniskillen is to be developed as Northern Ireland’s first eco-village. Grants are also to be made available to encourage sustainability in the private housing sector as well as more resources to carry out disabled living adaptations.

Energy efficiency is also a key objective in the Minister’s fight against fuel poverty and she outlined her plan to increase her Depart­ment’s fuel-poverty spending from April as well as the introduction of practical reforms to the warm homes scheme.

The Minister also announced £7 million to kick start the redevelopment scheme in the Village area of Belfast.