Causeway Coast and Glens Council members hit out at housing crisis saying there's "not one single bed available from Eglinton to Cushendall"

At a Corporate Policy and Resources Committee meeting on Tuesday, May 28, PUP Councillor Russell Watton proposed lobbying the Housing Executive to “increase the temporary accommodation available in this borough”.

The proposal added: “Frequently over the last six months there has not been a single bed available for local people.”

Cllr Watton added: “We’re a borough of 150,000 people and on occasion in the last six months, there hasn’t been a single temporary accommodation bed in this whole borough. That is not good enough, it’s a disgrace, and it’s a scandal.

“This is going to get worse; the social housing budget has been slashed and the situation is spiralling out of control.

“There’s no accommodation for local people, and there’s no point in telling them to go to Bangor or Newry because they’re often working people and can’t travel to work in Coleraine.

“We’re in a dire situation and its getting worse and worse every year. People are at their wits’ end and it’s not nice telling a constituent that there’s not one single bed available from Eglinton to Cushendall.”

UUP Councillor Darryl Wilson said every member had been contacted by constituents who are in “dire straits”.

“It boils down to a lack of social housing and dire investment in building social housing over the last decade or more,” Cllr Wilson said. “And we just heard the Partnership Panel in our central government is not meeting because of the upcoming election. That’s bitterly disappointing because this is a Stormont issue.

“We hear about holiday homes and second properties, and we should shift that focus onto identifying land and lobbying the Government and Housing Executive to build more social housing.

“The brakes have been put on [building social houses] and I think it’s because the central government has lurched from crisis to crisis. Focus has gone on vanity projects, white elephants, and pouring billions of pounds into projects that won’t benefit housing.”

DUP Councillor Mervyn Storey said that, as a former Minister for Housing, this was an issue where “we should all collectively hang our heads in shame”.

“In 2014 to 2016, this was a crisis. That’s ten years ago, and we have a need that’s scandalous. We had promises made of 100,000 houses built within ten years, but we’d be lucky to build Lego inside six months.

“Because we just about meet the 8,000 houses set out in the Housing Development Plan, and they’re all built by housing associations because they stopped the Housing Executive building houses.”

Cllr Storey proposed inviting the HE’s area manager for Causeway, Mark Alexander, to a future meeting to discuss the issue.

SDLP Alderman Michael Coyle proposed meeting with HE Chief Executive, Grainia Long, and Cllr Watton also proposed inviting Communities Minister Gordon Lyons to a full council meeting.

“They shouldn’t be able to hide when there’s a crisis,” Cllr Storey concluded. “And the crisis isn’t resolved.”

“We can all blame who’s responsible, but that doesn’t solve the problem when someone in our borough is told the nearest place for temporary accommodation is 60 miles away.”