“A Missed Opportunity to Regenerate Communities”
The Ulster Unionist Party today branded the Finance Minister’s enhancement of the housing budget as a missed opportunity to really make a difference to so many working class communities across Northern Ireland.
Responding to the announcement on Tuesday that funding for 1,500 social houses was given to Minister Ritchie for 2008 in the final budget, Paula Bradshaw, Urban Regeneration Spokesperson for the Ulster Unionist Party, stated: “Let’s keep everything in perspective, DSD makes a bid for and receives funding to build 1,500 every year. For this coming year, funding for an additional 500 houses for Urban Renewal Areas was requested but never materialised in the final budget. If this money had been allocated by the Finance Minister then there would have been a real opportunity for the DSD and Northern Ireland Housing Executive to deliver on its commitments under the inter-departmental policy of Neighbourhood Renewal, which incidently was signed up to by all the Ministers.
“There are working class areas across Northern Ireland that has housing deemed, by independent experts, to fall below acceptable fitness standards, whereupon our housing authority has a statutory obligation to intervene. Additional monies above and beyond the year-on-year allocation would have allowed for targeted intervention in these communities that have suffered most in recent years to be regenerated.
“These communities are continuing to fail to feel any benefits from devolution and it is up to those in power to start using their positions to reverse the shameful dereliction across the Province. “