'You have no chance, you’ll never see a house': Causeway Coast & Glens councillor's warning over social housing
Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council has warned that only 30 social houses could be built across the entire borough this year.
It follows recent news that the Department for Communities (DfC) has slashed its projected social housing builds for the year across Northern Ireland to approximately 1,000 due to budgetary constraints.
This is around half the almost 2,000 new homes needed annually to satisfy a commitment within the Programme for Government, to supply 5,850 new social homes by 2027.
PUP Councillor Russell Watton proposed writing to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE), asking for the percentage of DfC’s social housing budget that is allocated to the borough
Cllr Watton said he has been “stymied at every opportunity” when trying to ascertain current figures but the most recent figure he had was 3%, equating to just 30 houses.
“That’ll go far in this borough,” he said. “It’s an absolute disaster.
“I just don’t know what we’re going to do and what we’re going to tell people out on the street.
“I tell the truth, and I’m telling people now – ‘You have no chance, you’ll never see a house, God knows when you’ll see a house’.
“We’re not getting anywhere, it’s getting worse and worse. We’re at the bottom of the pile, we couldn’t be any lower, and with this cut from 2,000 to 1,000 we will be even lower.
”We’re not even treading water, it’s an absolute joke.”
DUP Councillor Mervyn Storey agreed with Cllr Watton’s comments and said he didn’t expect “anything of substance” in a reply from NIHE, but council will “keep asking”.