Housing supply target requires concrete actions
The Executive has approved a plan to deliver a housing system that can provide 100,000 new homes in 15 years, but has yet to publish a financial plan for delivery.
The Housing Supply Strategy, the bulk of which has been in draft form since March 2022, was published in December 2024 by Minister for Communities Gordon Lyons MLA as a cross-departmental plan, indicating the cross-cutting nature of the challenges facing the housing sector.
The Housing Supply Strategy targets at least 33,000 social homes, and a significant number of intermediate homes, within its 100,000 home target.
Although broadly welcomed against the backdrop of a 60-year low of housing completions in 2023, the publication of the strategy has been met with concerns that an estimated annual target of 6,667 new homes out to 2039 falls short of demand, while the absence of a targeted funding plan raises questions around the delivery of ambitions.
However, the Executive has said that the strategy will be delivered through a series of “detailed action plans”, which will align with budget periods. Alongside this, it has pledged to publish annual progress reports and strategically review the plan every five years.
The “whole system approach” of the strategy acknowledges the reach of the housing challenge right across government, pointing to water infrastructure constraints, land-use planning, construction skills, and land availability.
Describing the investment challenge as “substantial” in the face of constrained public finances and international economic uncertainty, the strategy’s direction on investment lies in it stating: “Difficult decisions will need to be made. However, through active collaboration between public, private, and charitable partners, maximising current policy levers and developing new ones, we can find solutions and create opportunities.”
The strategy itself sets out the scale and significance of the challenge of delivering on the 100,000 home target. Northern Ireland’s housing demand is growing even above projected figures. Census figures for 2021 showed 768,810 households existed in Northern Ireland, 3.2 per cent above what had been projected in 2016. The increase in households is largely attributed to an ageing population, and this challenge is only expected to increase as over 60 per cent of households are expected to be one or two adult households without children by 2041.
Increasing housing need is already evident in the substantial increase in the number of households in housing stress. According to the strategy’s own figures: “In March 2003 there were approximately 13,000 in housing stress. This rose to almost 21,000 by March 2011 and reached a new peak of 36,137 by June 2024.” Within these figures, 11,537 households were accepted as homeless in 2023/24.
Trade body Propertymark has pointed out that the ambitions for housing supply over the next 15 years are still over 15 per cent lower than the housing completions achieved in the 15 years to 2020.
Objectives
Five key objectives have been identified within the strategy, namely:
1) Creating affordable options: Increase housing supply and affordable options across all tenures to meet housing need and demand.
2) Prevention and intervention: Prevent homelessness, reduce housing stress and improve and prioritise housing solutions for those most in need.
3) Quality and safety: Improve housing quality.
4) Better places: Ensure the provision of housing options that contribute to the building and maintenance of thriving, inclusive communities and places.
5) A fair path to low carbon housing: Ensure that the construction of new housing and retrofitting of existing homes enables people to afford to heat their homes as well as allowing us to meet our greenhouse gas emission targets.
Included in plans to create more affordable housing across all tenures, the strategy indicates a number of enabling actions, including an agreed rent policy with the Housing Executive, and the extension of the scope of the Government Land and Property Register (GLPR) Programme, to digitally map all land and property holdings for both central government and local government in Northern Ireland.
Additionally, the Executive has pledged to support the development of options for establishment of an Infrastructure Commission, undertake an assessment of registered housing associations’ powers, and support the work of the Planning Improvement Programme.
In relation to prevention and intervention, there is a commitment to deliver an interdepartmental Homelessness Action Plan, and implement recommendations of the Fundamental Review of Social Housing Allocations.
The strategy commits to a “comprehensive review of fitness standards applicable for all tenures”, and the progression of Housing Executive revitalisation under enablers of improved quality and safety. This is in addition to plans to deliver new legislation “that will improve the safety, security and quality of the private rented sector”. Specifically, the strategy says enforcement powers will be strengthened for the sector through the introduction of longer notice to quit periods and the transfer of landlord registration to local authorities.
Towards building better places, the Department says it will work with stakeholders to mainstream mixed tenure in both social and private housing developments, develop a housing-led regeneration policy, and assess the value of community asset transfers for affordable housing delivery.
Finally, in relation to the delivery of low carbon housing, the strategy acknowledges a requirement beyond new houses. Highlighting that the majority of housing stock in Northern Ireland is more than 40 years old, the Department states: “We will also need to do more to ensure our stock of existing homes across all tenures is fit for purpose, to keep them in the housing system.”
Alongside a commitment to deliver on the policies, proposals and enabling actions for residential buildings in the draft Climate Action Plan, and align with the Green Growth Strategy, the Department proposes a minimum standard creation for the private rented sector, a review of the Decent Homes Standard and Fitness Standard, as well as supports for housing associations to develop homes to a higher energy standard.
While the publication of the strategy and the cross-governmental approach has been endorsed by several key stakeholder organisations within the housing sector, the absence of a funding plan means concerns remain.
SDLP MLA for Foyle Mark Durkan voiced some of the existing concerns in his criticism of the strategy: “This strategy is more of the same and utterly meaningless without funding to address the reasons for the housing emergency we are experiencing across the North,” he says.
“When the draft strategy was announced in 2021, we were told the Executive would deliver 100,000 homes over 15 years, with little detail on how they would deliver them. In the past five years, the department claim they have started just over 8,000 new social homes, and they expect us to believe they will build 10 times that over the next 15.
“Given everything we have seen from this Executive so far that seems insurmountable. Targets are meaningless without a clear plan to tackle the root causes preventing house building in the North.”
Following the strategy’s publication, the Minister of Finance Caoimhe Archibald MLA has since published a draft Budget for 2025/26, under which the Department for Communities has been allocated £929.7 million resource DEL and £318.1 million in capital.
