Senior officials defend proceeding with Derry sewerage, water and drainage plan after projected Belfast cost balloons

The proposed Living With Water in Derry Plan is nearing completion following a consultation earlier this year.

Officials have said the plan is almost complete and is due for publication imminently.

But concerns about its affordability have been raised at the Stormont Infrastructure Committee after a similar plan for Belfast ballooned in cost by £700m from £1.4bn to £2.1bn ‘due to increased costs for Northern Ireland Water (NIW) elements’.

Director of the Living With Water Programme at the Department for Infrastructure Simon Richardson told the committee the Belfast plan can no longer be delivered in the intended 12-year timeframe originally envisaged.

The Belfast plan, he said, is now being delivered ‘at a scale and pace that is in accordance with the budgets that are available to the main stakeholders such as NI Water’.

"The delivery mechanism for the Derry plan is similar to what we are doing for the Belfast plan. We felt that it was important to continue the development of the strategic drainage needs in the geographical area. For that reason, we have progressed with that development, but we have concentrated on the nature-based interventions,” said Mr. Richardson.

DUP MLA Peter Martin, who is the chair of the Infrastructure Committee, asked why DfI was proceeding with the Derry plan given the situation with Belfast.

"Given that knowledge and the clear identification that there was by that stage of how much it would cost to do just the Belfast plan, I am a little confused as to why a consultation was announced for Derry/Londonderry in January 2025. Do you see where I am going with that?” he asked.

Mr. Richardson replied: “I absolutely do; I understand that. People have asked me directly why we are going out with a Derry/Londonderry plan when we cannot deliver the Belfast plan.”

He described the Belfast Living With Water plan as ‘huge’ and said ‘hard-engineering upgrades’ formed an important part of it.

For Derry, he said, greater emphasis was placed on blue-green nature-based drainage proposals.

"If we had done a similar plan for Derry/Londonderry, putting in all the NI Water costs, and it had come out at, for example, £1 billion, where would that have taken us?” Mr. Richardson asked.

The DfI official said a lot of work had gone into identifying both pressures and opportunities for nature-based solutions.

This has included working with the designers of the A2 Buncrana Road upgrade on drainage elements.

"There were significant drainage problems, but that was prime development land, so, by putting detention or attenuation ponds — whatever we call them — along the side of the A2, we would have been taking prime development land away and putting in ponds.

"We went back up the catchment, however, and put a pond in an area of green space that was not being used and that was, in fact, owned by the Housing Executive. We did a lot of work with the Housing Executive whereby we were able to put in a blue-green integrated solution that would help to facilitate the construction of the road and maximise the number of houses that could be built,” Mr. Richardson said.

This intervention took place at O’Naullian Crescent in Ballymagroarty where a Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS) was developed in order to reduce flooding. It involved the creation of a wetland feature to temporarily store water during periods of heavy rain.

Officials were unable to put an estimated figure on how much the Derry Living With Water plan would cost to implement.

"As it sits, the Derry plan raises awareness of the issues in the area and raises stakeholders' awareness of the potential of blue-green interventions and speaks to all the stakeholders to say, ‘What are you doing in the near future? What schemes do you have coming? How can we integrate blue-green interventions into those schemes?’.

"I do not have a figure that I can give you. I cannot say, for example, ‘Right, we need £1 billion to take forward the Derry plan’. However, I see the Derry plan as being an important vehicle for continuing the debate and discussion on, and delivery of, nature-based solutions,” Mr. Richardson added.

Derry’s Living with Water plan went out for consultation in January.

According to DfI the plan sets out proposals for a strategic long-term approach to drainage and wastewater management in the city and surrounding area.

"It proposes a collaborative multi-agency approach by encouraging partners to work together to develop the right solutions in the right places promoting a combination of traditional hard engineered measures alongside natural solutions such as using open green spaces to naturally absorb and store surface water,” DfI said at the time.

Welcoming the consultation earlier this year, Karen Philips, Director of Environment and Regeneration from Derry City & Strabane District Council: “I very much welcome the publication of this draft Plan which outlines a much-needed, long-term integrated approach to tackling drainage and wastewater management issues.

"Derry City and Strabane District Council looks forward to working with partners, in particular the department for infrastructure and Northern Ireland Water, to support the development and delivery of projects that seek to address the current constraints on drainage and infrastructure throughout the City and District, in order to support the aims of Derry City and Strabane District’s Inclusive Strategic Growth Plan (2017 - 2032).”