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Half of NIHE homes ‘could be decommissioned’

Half of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive’s (NIHE) 86,500 homes could be left to fall into disrepair from 2020 if it cannot secure extra funding.

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NIHE homes in Belfast (picture: Google)
NIHE homes in Belfast (picture: Google)
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Half of NIHE homes “could be decommissioned” #ukhousing

Severe funding shortfalls mean the housing authority is “not in a position to maintain our homes to the standard required and will have to make difficult investment decisions going forward if a long-term funding solution is not found”, it said in a statement.

In the “worst-case scenario”, if the current position continues this would mean halting improvement work and focusing only on essential health and safety maintenance for a large chunk of the NIHE’s stock within two years.

The NIHE estimates that it would be just three years “before we begin to see a detrimental impact on the condition of our homes”.


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It issued the statement after investigative news website The Detail was leaked a letter from Leo O’Reilly, permanent secretary of the Department for Communities, to Democratic Unionist Party MLA Mervyn Storey.

In the letter, Mr O’Reilly suggested that half of the NIHE’s stock could be affected, with the board “planning for the longer-term decommissioning of the rest of its stock” from the start of 2019.

The landlord takes £290m a year from its rents – which have been frozen since 2016. Debt and management costs of £130m a year mean it is only able to meet around half of the £300m annual stock investment it believes is needed over the next six years.

The NIHE said it would be “de-investing” in its stock, making a distinction between this and “decommissioning”.

Homes could be sold off to the private sector, transferred to housing associations or demolished and redeveloped.

However, the NIHE said there would likely be “a great deal of difficulty” getting support from tenants and politicians for stock transfer, and that it has “major concerns” about losing social housing stock.

An estimated £7bn of investment is needed in the NIHE’s stock over the next 30 years, according to the NIHE’s Asset Management Strategy 2016.

Last week, Mr O’Reilly told the Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations conference that “there is not yet any viable plan in place to deliver that”.

He suggested the body could be reformed to become similar to a housing association.

A spokesperson for the NIHE said: “The option outlined above, as has been stated, is a worst-case scenario.

“The Housing Executive believes that to curtail our Asset Management Strategy is far from ideal and it does not provide the modern standard of social housing provision that is expected in the rest of the UK and that is being provided locally by our colleagues in the housing association movement.

“We have made substantial progress in the supply and the quality of housing in Northern Ireland since 1971 – this will be put at risk if we do not develop a long-term and certain funding solution to deliver the scale of investment required for our homes.”

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