A plan to modernise Belfast’s ageing drainage and wastewater system has stalled due to a lack of funding.
NI Water has confirmed that its £1.4bn Living With Water Programme for Greater Belfast is “no longer achievable” within its original 12-year timetable.
The government-owned company’s chief executive Sara Venning previously described the programme as “critical to ensuring a long-term solution to the city’s extensive wastewater needs”.
The delay in making Belfast more resilient to flooding, while also reducing the environmental harm caused by untreated sewage, is blamed on “significant funding challenges”.
NI Water has said there is “no investment available” for major projects under the Living With Water programme for Belfast, including the replacement of the north’s largest wastewater pumping station at Sydenham in the east of the city.
It says that project is “now paused indefinitely”, along with other upgrades of wastewater treatment works across the city.
The hold-up is revealed in a letter from NI Water to residents in east Belfast, which has been seen by The Irish News.
The correspondence says a review carried out last year by the Department of Infrastructure (DfI) concluded that while the need for the Belfast Living With Water programme still exists, it cannot be completed within the original timescale.
“Delivery of the Belfast plan is no longer being taken forward through a formal programme but will instead be progressed by individual partners, such as NI Water, and delivered as normal business ‘at the scale and pace achievable within available budgets,” the letter says.
The letter says DfI has advised NI Water “to plan based on a defined level of constrained capital funding budget until 2033″ but the company says the budget figure “presents a significant shortfall” when compared to that recommended by the Utility Regulator.
Alliance Infrastructure spokesperson and East Belfast MLA Peter McReynolds said the pause on the major works was “another example of the crisis being allowed to develop at NI Water”.
“With the programme paused and a short-term sticking plaster approach being applied to managing water in Belfast, this is simply not conducive of an infrastructure plan of this size and importance,” he said.
“Last summer, we saw burst pipes leaking toilet water and human waste in Newtownabbey, BBC Spotlight recently revealed large amounts of human waste polluting Belfast Lough – NI Water is a contributor to the environmental damage in Lough Neagh as its infrastructure is outdated and unable to cope.”
Mr McReynolds called for a change in how the company is funded.
“No other country funds water as we do because it cannot address the major complexities involved in delivering water infrastructure.
“Instead, we need to mutualise NI Water, bringing it into community ownership, which would allow it to borrow against its asset base and invest that money in desperately needed improvements to our water infrastructure.”
NI Water said it had set out the potential implications of failing to implement the Living With Water programme in Belfast last October in a 37-page document.
Ahead of moving to Stormont’s Department of Finance on Monday, outgoing infrastructure minister John O’Dowd said: “Despite the difficult and ongoing financial pressures I am facing, this year I allocated almost half a billion pounds to NI Water.
“This is to address the issues with our ageing water infrastructure and to unlock the challenges around housing. This reflects the central importance I place on water and sewerage services to our society and to protect and improve the water environment.”
