Efforts made to ease‘colossal’ adaption lists

However, it is still suffering backlogs due to the liquidation of a contractor that carried out a lot of the work in the past.

Delays in completing internal works was raised with the Department of Communities by Foyle MLA Mark H. Durkan, who said waiting lists were ‘colossal’.

The SDLP social justice spokesman wrote to the department asking what efforts were underway to obtain additional resources to carry out these essential works as soon as possible.

A departmental response has now been issued to Mr. Durkan explaining that a pilot adaptation scheme that had proved successful in Newtownards and Craigavon was recently expanded to the Housing Executive’s North region offices in Derry and Ballymena.

DfC stated: “Within the last 12 months NIHE have moved towards recruiting additional staffing resources to undertake the design element of the adaptation in-house. This has proven to increase quality and improve time frames.

“Whilst good progress has been made in the last 6-12 months, NIHE are still suffering from backlogs following the insolvency of a consultant who provided much of this work previously. At the time of insolvency there was a large backlog of work which NIHE moved forward with internally. This has taken additional time to the overall adaptation process.

“Other external factors impacting on this work have been the liquidation of a contractor providing a large portion of these works as well as the issues around contractor capacity and availability that is being encountered in the construction industry as a whole.

“To mitigate this risk NIHE has gone to tender with a larger contractor framework and is hopeful to attract more contractors to this framework and limiting the need to procure further through the duration of the framework.”

Mr. Durkan said: “I am hopeful that NIHE’s efforts to secure more contractors in conjunction with the ongoing recruitment drive, will prove successful in addressing the current backlog.

“Many people have already waited too long for these life-changing adaptations. They must be delivered as soon as feasibly possible to ensure individuals can live more independently and enjoy a better quality of life within their homes.”