RSUA meets with the Economy Committee at NI Assembly

9 October 2024

The Royal Society of Ulster Architects, as part of a delegation from the Better Homes NI Forum, met with the Economy Committee at Stormont today to discuss retrofit.

The Forum was represented by David Little (Chair of the Forum), Anita Conway (Director of Development at Radius Housing), Gavin McGuire (NI Director of the Federation of Master Builders) and Ciarán Fox (RSUA Director).

The key points covered in the evidence session were:

• The need for clarity on whether the Department for Economy or the Department for Communities would be leading on retrofit of homes and how this would be funded
• The need for a ring-fenced Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund as exists elsewhere in the UK and Ireland
• The importance of a clear pipeline of retrofit work to give people and businesses the confidence to invest in training and upskilling

After the meeting Ciarán Fox said “Improving our housing stock and decarbonising heat can help reduce poverty, improve health and provide well-paid local jobs whilst making a big impact on meeting our legislative targets under the Climate Change Act NI to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

“Whilst this is a complex cross-cutting issue, it is important that it is clear which Government Department will take the lead to co-ordinate the delivery of a mass retrofit programme.”

“The big challenge is how to do this at scale and at pace. Government commissioned reports from the start of this decade suggested we needed to be retrofitting up to 50,000 properties per annum to meet the 2030 target for the region. We’re nowhere near that at the moment.”

“We discussed the multitude of factors that must be taken account of in developing a successful retrofit programme. Critically, we must learn from experiences elsewhere and avoid the mistakes made.”

The membership of the Economy Committee can be viewed here.

You can watch the full committee meeting here. The Better Homes NI Forum discussion starts at 2:43:41.