Do you remember when... 1,000 new homes were to be built in borough

One thousand new homes were to be built in Newtownabbey in 1981/82, according to a report in the East Antrim Times.

The Housing Executive’s director of finance told a meeting of Newtownabbey Borough Council that the building programme was possible due to “economies within the local organisation”.

“Last year, the Executive suffered unprecedented cuts and we were forced to take take steps to economise. By doing so, we were able to control the situation,” he said.

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He indicated that the building programme was to be funded by tenants buying their properties through a home ownership scheme.

More than 1,000 tenants had applied to the home ownership scheme with 300 formal offers being made to the Housing Executive.

Originally, the plan had been for the construction of 2,600 properties.

The housing official went on to say that 75 per cent of housing applications had been made by local people.

He noted that urgent repairs were carried out by the Executive within five days and essential repairs, within six weeks.