Sinn Fein Minister O'Dowd accused of turning his back on helping the environment after budget cuts mothball pollution-busting overhauls of Belfast Lough sewage treatment plants

As the News Letter revealed this week, plans to massively revamp four treatment works in the Greater Belfast area and extend the city’s huge underground flood tunnel are down the tubes as a result of Department of Infrastructure (DfI) cuts.

The treatment plant projects were supposed to combat severe pollution problems that see more than 17 million tonnes of untreated or partially treated wastewater dumped into Belfast Lough every year, as well improving drinking water quality and clearing up bad smells.

But NI Water has mothballed all of them, as well as a two-mile extension to the flood tunnel, due to cuts the DfI brought in near the end of 2024.

Now the UUP has accused him of turning his back on moves that could help the environment.

"This lands at the minister’s door, it’s an ideological decision that he made,” said Ards and North Down Council alderman Philip Smith, when the issue came up at a committee meeting this week.

"[O’Dowd’s incoming replacement as Infrastructure Minister] Liz Kimmins will take on this mantle, but knowing Sinn Fein I doubt there’ll be too much difference in the policy approach of the ministers.

“There are positive ideas, but ultimately the Minister has turned his back on [them] and we’re in the position we’re in.

"NI Water can’t magic investment out of the budget they currently have – this has been decades of underinvestment in our water infrastructure and it’s now coming to a head.

"This is a governmental decision and until they change their mind, we’re going to look at the same problem going forward.”

One of the four sewage treatment plants that was due to be overhauled is on the shore of Holywood to the east of Belfast, and lies within the Ards and North Down area.

NI Water has said it will engage in a programme of maintenance now the major projects have been mothballed, an idea that raised hackles in the council committee.

Alliance councillor Gillian McCollum argued politicians should demand NI Water refuse to “collude with DfI in a whitewash” by suggesting the maintenance programme “would enable some progress to be made, because we all know that it won’t.”

And Green councillor Lauren Kendall branded the mothballing “wholly unacceptable”.

"This needs a cross-government, multi-party, multi-departmental approach, and the budgets need to be made available,” she said.

"NI Water should progress with plans, not just for [Holywood] but all the places across Northern Ireland from which sewage, pollution and muck is going into our clean water system,” she said.

The four treatment plants are in Belfast’s docklands as well as the north of the city, plus Holywood and Newtownabbey.

They’re not up to scratch, however; NI Water has said the docklands works has “no capacity to complete routine maintenance or cope with unexpected shocks”, while the Holywood and Newtownabbey facilities have “significant capacity problems” and are struggling to cope with growing populations in their respective areas.

The DfI has halted a major plan to overhaul Belfast’s sewer system after costs spiralled by more than half a billion pounds, forcing NI Water to mothball the revamps.