Letter: No revenue raising for Northern Ireland's water sector without transformation
A letter from Brian Pope:
Sara Venning, NI Water’s chief executive, told Stormont’s Infrastructure Committee last week that the developer contributions proposed by the department to solve the wastewater and housebuilding crisis in Northern Ireland would have a limited impact on revenue raising.
It is correct that 'developer contributions' alone are not going to solve the wastewater and housebuilding crisis but further revenue raising is not popular with the public, especially when Stormont has not always had a good track record in spending taxpayers’ money efficiently.
It is a fact that taxpayers are not going to be persuaded to provide a 'blank cheque' to the water industry without clear evidence of the 'e' word, ‘efficiencies’.
The missing piece in this whole argument around the current housebuilding and wastewater crisis is the unspoken issue of efficiencies and transformation.
Of course, transformation alone cannot address the decades long underinvestment in our water infrastructure, but it could provide much needed reassurance to the public that every pound is being spent wisely – which, in turn, makes the case for greater revenue raising all the easier.
In the week that house price inflation in Northern Ireland was twice that of the rest of GB this is an issue that both NI Water and the wider development industry need to come to terms with.
Brian Pope, chartered civil engineer and former ABC councillor, Banbridge, Co Down