Lisburn 1,300 homes development under threat due to NI Water infrastructure crisis

Plans for a Lisburn housing development of 1,300 homes are under threat according to an NI Water update to the local authority.
Planning approval for the £250million Blaris area housing scheme and a privately built link road was granted by Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council (LCCC) in March 2021.

But according to a letter to the Council from NIW regarding its under-pressure wastewater infrastructure, the Blaris development has been "impacted" as it falls within what the water company is calling 'closed areas'. These areas, the letter to Council Chief Executive David Burns explains, are "an area within the wastewater network that is closed to any further connections due to high polluting assets".

READ MORE: Lisburn to host UK Armed Forces v Irish Defence Forces football tournament.

READ MORE: Lisburn Castlereagh taking 'legal advice' on allowing Belfast residents to use recycling centre.

Elected reps have now called for NIW to provide further clarity in chambers as 1,900 residential units in total will be impacted across LCCC including hundreds of social/affordable housing builds. The letter adds: "We estimate that approximately 1,900 units within the Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council area are impacted by these closed areas where developer funded solutions are no longer possible". It goes on to list the areas where these 'units' , mainly houses, are as Belfast, Carryduff, Dundonald, Dunmurry, Hillsborough, Lisburn and Moira.

Council head of planning, Conor Hughes reported to the committee saying: "The council has planned for housing growth of approximately 12,000 newbuilds (Local Development Plan-2032) subject to a consultation with NIW.

"Blaris was identified as a place for strategic mixed use development and it is noted from the latest NIW update that the 1,300 units planned are impacted. NIW had never highlighted any risk to the council that Blaris could not be developed as it was outside the scope of a developer funded solution.

"This represents a significant impediment to growth in Lisburn and Castlereagh as the new housing funded a road which unlocked the economic potential of the wider lands. The unlocking of this strategic designation was of primary importance to growing the base rate of the council area."
NIW has previously publicly announced its "chronic underfunding" and "failing wastewater infrastructure" would mean it is unable to take connections from new houses and businesses in major parts of Northern Ireland. The major Blaris construction has already faced setbacks since its approval.
The plans were 'called in' by the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) in January 2022, and in August 2023, it issued a 'notice of opinion’ to refuse planning permission for the housing development whilst approving the link road.
LCCC has since appealed the decision, but the Planning Appeals Commission (PAC) has told the council on the NI Planning Portal, "it is likely to be 2026 before we will be in a position to progress cases" until a report into a Co Tyrone gold mine (Dalradian Conjoined Inquiry) is completed or more resources become available.
Blaris developer Neptune Carleton LLP has stated the 1,300 home scheme could be worth hundreds of millions of pounds to the local economy over the next 15 years.
In chambers, Mr Hughes added: "The absence of appropriate levels of continuous investment in NIW assets also has significant implications for the delivery of affordable housing within the council area.
"Approximately 400 new affordable residential units are potentially not deliverable in the short to medium term on the basis of the latest advice.
"The impacts for planned growth and the changed position of NIW in terms of planned capital investment due to budget constraint requires further clarification and challenge (if required)."

Eighteen other developments in the council area have also been identified by NIW,; Belfast (2), Carryduff (8), Dundonald (3), Dunmurry (1), Hillsborough (1) Lisburn (2) and Moira (1).
They include a social housing project, a major supermarket and a major distribution centre. The NIW constraints on the development plans include; being 'closed off' to wastewater network due to high pollution assets, capacity limits and/or funding availability issues.

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.