Belfast vs NI Water: Council says no 'robust evidence' sewers can't handle new buildings, as nine projects to get planning permission over pollution objections
Belfast is to break with NI Water, arguing there’s no ‘robust evidence’ the city’s sewers can’t handle several new building projects – despite the firm’s insistence the system is already struggling.
Northern Ireland Water has been objecting to developments in much of Northern Ireland for the past couple of years, arguing the sewer system in many parts of the province couldn’t cope with them.
But officials in Belfast Council disagree, arguing the firm hasn’t supplied “robust evidence” of capacity problems to a standard needed to block construction projects. Politicians have agreed, voting to give senior planners power to effectively ignore objections from NI Water in several cases.
The move frees planners to approve everything from a new 36-bed city centre hotel, to a block of flats intended for short-term AirBnB-style lets in east Belfast, to a plan intended to turn the now-closed loyalist Con Club on Newtownards Road into apartments.
Nine specific projects have been highlighted as situations in which officials can decide to ignore NI Water, all of them applications involving changing an existing building to a different use – for example, the 36-bed hotel is to be renovated from empty offices above a long-running city bar, while another involves demolishing a disused Masonic Hall to build a block of social housing.
Some are cases that would appear to be relatively simple and small-scale cases, such as turning a coffee bar into a shop or a hairdresser’s into a vet’s.
In council reports, planning officials argue the applications would normally get a green light without needing to be publicly debated, but NI Water’s objections mean they’d have to be sent to the Planning Committee for a vote. Doing so would mean spending “considerable cost, time and resources” on projects they could otherwise wave through.
NI Water is struggling to afford already overdue revamps to sewer networks across Northern Ireland, and capacity issues provincewide are said to be stopping 19,000 new homes from being built.
Objections filed by the firm state that demand from new developments would be too much for nearby sewers, storm overflow systems or sewage treatment plants, potentially causing pollution, flooding and adverse impact on existing properties. In the capital city, they can also list concerns about harm to water in Belfast Lough.
City planners argue that any applications they turn down based on capacity issues could be appealed, and they’d then be forced to defend the case. At appeal, they’d have to deliver “robust evidence” to support their decision – but, they claim, NI Water only gives them broad concerns, instead of listing specific problems each individual project would cause.
State planners: “NI Water have in recent months added further detail to their responses [to planning objections], but sufficient robust evidence has not been provided.
“In the absence of robust evidence, it would be unreasonable to refuse planning permission.”
Officials also state that 20,000 homes and “significant levels of commercial floor space” across the city have planning permission, but have yet to be built. On paper, they’re all due to be connected to the sewer network; as a result, planners argue the unbuilt homes and businesses could be regarded as fallback capacity.
Belfast Council’s Planning Committee voted to allow their officials to ignore NI Water’s objections at a meeting this week.