Letter: Give Northern Ireland Water the ability to borrow to undertake urgent infrastructure upgrades

Despite the recent optimism on infrastructure workloads our wastewater crisis is having the same impact on the housing industry as Donald Trump’s tariffs are having on their economy.

The latest Construction Monitor for Q1 2025, produced by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), showed that workloads in public housing had declined by 11% this quarter. They highlighted that ‘planning delays’ and ‘a lack of wastewater infrastructure’ continued to impact the sector.

As a result, house prices are set to continue to rise which is good news for homeowners but bad news for those hoping to get onto the housing ladder or for those on a social housing waiting list.

As a civil engineer I know how difficult it is to obtain a drainage connection for new homes and businesses. Over the last month or two it has also become increasingly difficult to find the mitigation solutions necessary to connect the sites that could potentially be built.

The solution to this crisis is to give Northern Ireland Water the ability to borrow to undertake these urgent infrastructure upgrades.

Besides, our Infrastructure Minister’s party supports the right for NIE Networks and the electricity industry to raise money from the NI customer to undertake their utility upgrades so why not the same for the water industry?

Governing is not easy and, to prove this, all we need to do is look to the other side of the pond where Donald Trump’s unquestioned decisions are driving their economy closer to a recession. That is the last thing we want here.

Brian Pope, Chartered Civil Engineer, Banbridge, Co. Down