AN important social housing project at a north Belfast interface is being held up by lack of sewage capacity.

The Duncairn site between Tiger’s Bay and the New Lodge is best known as the location of the Adam Street bonfire dispute.

This raises the overlooked question of how social housing fits into Sinn Féin’s plan to help fund NI Water through developer contributions.

Most social housing is built by housing associations. Should they give cash to NI Water, or build their own drainage facilities, as private developers are being asked to do?

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Housing associations typically get half their funding from Stormont and raise or borrow the rest themselves.

Loans are secured and repaid from rents, including housing benefits funded by Westminster.

So Stormont could see this as a a half-price way of giving NI Water extra money and indirect access to private borrowing.

The Housing Executive has recently returned to construction after a two-decade absence. Stormont has been dithering for years over giving it borrowing powers. This could be another reason to get a move on.

In Belfast, private developers are now required to provide one fifth of units as social or affordable housing at their own expense. This policy is likely to spread across Northern Ireland.

Can developers be expected to do this and provide water contributions? Perhaps it should be one or the other.

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The Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) did not support this week’s fuel protests, unlike during the major protests in 2000, but the number of tractors involved suggested farmers were the leading participants.

It seems they should be the last people protesting when they pay one-fifth the diesel duty of ordinary motorists, saving 42 pence per litre. They will also escape a 5 pence per litre rise due to be phased in for everyone else over the........

© The Irish News