Housing:European lending for local housing
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010A relatively recent addition to the social housing landscape in Northern Ireland, the European Investment Bank is increasingly becoming a source of funding for the sector here. Director General of Lending Tom Hackett gives Ryan Jennings an overview of the bank’s work in the province to date. The European Investment Bank is relatively new to Northern Ireland. Historically its role in housing was limited to just retrofit and reconstruction and not new builds or additions. Active in Great Britain since 2000, no specific part of the bank’s remit explicitly covers social housing. Since...[full story]
2010 manifestos:Housing
Friday, May 14th, 2010Worryingly for Housing Executive staff, the DUP plans for housing include “breaking up” the executive into a ‘true’ strategic housing authority with responsibility for landlord and development functions. This, the party says, would allow an estimated £3 million of assets held by the Housing Executive to be used to pay for new-builds and the maintenance programme. The common housing selection scheme would also come under the spotlight as would the VAT level on repairs and maintenance of properties, which the party proposes to reduce. To counter fuel poverty, a boiler scrappage...[full story]
Energy:Boiler scrappage
Friday, May 14th, 2010While the rest of the UK have their own boiler replacement schemes, Northern Ireland has yet to follow suit. agendaNi examines why. Older G-rated boilers will be replaced with A-rated ones. Perhaps one of the few headline grabbers the early stages of planning, it is Those people who are classed as fuel- in the Chancellor’s Pre-Budget Report in December was the introduction of the boiler scrappage scheme. Limited to England only, it has been down to the devolved UK regions to decide whether to run similar schemes. £400 was made available to the first 125,000 householders who registered...[full story]
Energy:Out in the cold
Friday, May 14th, 2010Northern Ireland spends more on heating the home than any other region in the UK. Ryan Jennings finds out why and what is being done to help the fuel-poor. Defined as spending more than 10 per cent of a household income on heating the home, fuel poverty has moved up the agenda as more and more households have been left out in the cold. The levers for dealing with the problem are spread out throughout the Executive. DETI has overall responsibility for energy, DSD is the welfare department and takes the lead in dealing with fuel poverty and the Housing Executive – a DSD agency – has...[full story]
Housing:Healthy housing
Friday, May 14th, 2010Ryan Jennings hears South Eastern Trust Chief Executive Hugh McCaughey’s explanation of the role of housing in keeping the population healthy. Housing, Hugh McCaughey says, is one of the major health determinants. Simply increasing the standard of housing – and therefore decreasing deprivation – would contribute to both a longer life expectancy and lower rates of poor health. “If you look back over the last century or centuries, the big gains in public health have been made through sanitation and housing,” he suggests. Research by the World Health Organisation would also suggest...[full story]
Housing:Taking stock
Friday, May 14th, 2010Property consultants Savills had many good things to say about the state of the social housing stock here but some MLAs want more emphasis on maintaining existing properties rather than new-builds. Housing in Northern Ireland has not always been straight forward. Indeed the present housing authority – the Housing Executive – was created in 1972 because of inequalities in the allocation of then- council housing. When the SDLP took the Department for Social Development after the 2007 election, it did so with new-builds high on its agenda. DSD pledged to build 2,000 extra houses each...[full story]
Community relations:Living together?
Monday, March 8th, 2010The housing selection scheme could increase division, according to Housing Minister Margaret Ritchie. Ryan Jennings looks at how integrated housing could be encouraged. When the Housing Executive was set up in 1971 its main aim was to move away from the evident inequalities in council housing allocation. Up until that year, as is still the norm over the water, ‘council housing’ really did mean housing owned by the council. The executive is now charged with ownership of the social housing stock. While the waiting list has fluctuated, it now sits at over 40,000, with another 20,000...[full story]
