Housing schemes ‘not fully adopted’

Housing schemes ‘not fully adopted’

20 November 2024

ALMOST 200 new private housing developments across the Newry, Mourne and Down Council area have not been formally adopted by a leading government department and NI Water, new figures have revealed.

When new developments are adopted, the government department and utility company automatically become responsible for all roads, wastewater and other infrastructure issues, ensuring homeowners do not have to pick up the tab when things go wrong.

New data published by the DfI reveals that province-wide, almost 2,000 new developments remain unadopted with the 170 in Newry, Mourne and Down the third highest out of Northern Ireland’s 11 councils.

South Down MLA Andy McMurray said the DfI and NI Water normally adopt roads and sewers built by private developers, provided they meet certain quality standards. 

But he explained that if sewers or roads are of insufficient quality, adoption cannot go ahead and when this happens, the developer remains responsible for any necessary repairs, with responsibility falling on homeowners if the developer goes out of business. 

To protect them in such cases, developers are legally obliged to put a “financial bond” in place before construction commences.

The bond is intended to cover any repair costs required to bring roads and sewers up to adoptable standards, should the developer default. 

Mr McMurray revealed that in the past, the value of some bonds have sometimes been insufficient to cover necessary works. 

As a result, the DfI increased bond calculation rates and raised awareness of the importance of bonds among solicitors to protect prospective homeowners. 

“However, many legacy cases remain,” the local MLA confirmed.

“A report published in 2012 estimated that it would cost £300m to bring all unadopted roads in Northern Ireland up to adoptable standard and between £4m and £100m to allow for adoption of all unadopted sewerage and wastewater schemes and that in the intervening years, these numbers will have increased due to inflation.”

Mr McMurray recently backed a DUP motion tabled at the Assembly on unadopted housing developments and roads.

“All new developments start out ‘unadopted’ and often there isn’t any issue at all. Developers do what they are supposed to do and the road to adoption is fairly smooth but, where things go wrong, it can be a very significant problem for residents,” he said.

“We must not forget that this issue can cause real hardship for people who are unable to sell their properties and, in the meantime, are dealing with completely unacceptable conditions. We need to ensure that developers meet their obligations and build to an acceptable standard that doesn’t cause problems further down the road.”

In addition, Mr McMurray said there is a need to find solutions for existing developments that cannot currently be adopted.

He said there needs to be a particular focus on developments that have very serious problems and where the bond is inadequate or non-existent and the developer has gone out of business.

“We can’t just abandon the residents who bought their homes in good faith and are facing this nightmare due to no fault of their own.” the MLA added.