Unadopted Roads: Committee for Regional Development Report

Part of Committee Business – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 3:15 pm on 4 December 2012.

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Photo of Francie Molloy Francie Molloy Sinn Féin 3:15, 4 December 2012

I welcome the Regional Development Committee report, which highlights the problems of unfinished estates, unadopted roads, sewers, street lights, and so on.

In the previous debate that we held on this subject, I highlighted the plight of an estate in Coalisland, Gortview, which had similar problems.  There was never a sewer connected, yet half a dozen houses had been sold.  It is hard to believe how a house could be sold and how solicitors and others could sign up a house for sale, including getting a mortgage, without having a sewer connected, but that is the reality.  Thankfully, that estate has now been resold to a new developer; it has been progressed and is now connected to a main sewer, and some of the other problems are being dealt with.  It is important that we record similar situations right across the country where those types of actions have happened. 

Members have mentioned the legal responsibility of solicitors when they sign up a person who is buying a house and the protection that the buyer expects to have in that situation.  Hopefully, the Law Society and others will ensure that solicitors make sure that that happens when those arrangements are made. 

I am concerned about the banks.  The banks help a developer by providing the finances for the development and then the same bank provides the mortgages for those who want to buy those houses.  The same bank was involved in the Gortview situation.  It seemed that there was some easy way of transferring when all the legal requirements were not in place.  It is important to ensure that the legal requirements are strengthened. 

All the issues around unadopted roads did not happen just as a result of the economic downturn.  We have to look back a few years.  Is the Minister aware that his predecessor, Conor Murphy, set up an inquiry to find out how many unadopted roads and lanes there were across the country?  Has there been any response to that report?  Perhaps the Minister could give us that information at a later stage.

I have in front of me a report that deals with the Culbane Road in the Magherafelt area.  That road is two-thirds adopted; the other third has not been adopted.  The local people have been asked to bring the end of that laneway up to almost motorway standard, even though the rest of the road is not up to that standard.  The Department's reply was very clear.  It noted that, in many rural locations, it would not make a lot of sense to make up those new parts to a full standard in narrow lanes or existing roads where adaptation has happened.  That is the reality.  Therefore, to get a roadway or a lane adopted in a rural area, why should the local people be asked to bring it up to a standard way beyond the standard of the adopted road that they are driving on?  That all adds to the confusion.  I am sure that the Minister will come back to that issue in the future. 

I welcome the fact that we are dealing with new estates and new roads that have not been finished or adopted.  However, it is important to look back and deal with the matter equally across the board, because many lane-ways in rural areas have never been adopted.  There are also some estates in towns where the roads have not been adopted.  Sandy Row — of all names — in Coalisland has never been adopted or even tarmacked by Roads Service and it is about 100 yds from the town centre.  That is an example of where Roads Service did not complete all the tasks when it adopted those roads.

There is a similar situation in an estate in Killowen in Coalisland that was built in the 1960s.  The council took a bond but never finished the road at the time.  It has never been tarmacked or adopted, and the people who live there still have a road that has large puddles and potholes, and it has devalued their houses.  Therefore, although we are dealing with the report on the inquiry —