Ards District Housing Plan 2013 - Northern Ireland Housing Executive

Regeneration and sustaining
communities are key themes of
the draft Housing Strategy for
Northern Ireland: ‘Facing the
Future’. Locally, Newtownards
Town Centre Regeneration
Masterplan was launched in
June 2010 and a number of
areas within Ards Borough have
been identified under DSD’s
‘Areas at Risk’ and ‘Small
Pockets of Deprivation’ (SPOD)
programmes. The former is designed to identify and intervene in areas at risk of
decline and the latter targets areas too small to allow full neighbourhood renewal.
Further details on investment and activities can be found in Section 3.4.
Housing Executive regeneration work continues to improve housing and living
conditions through physical improvement programmes (see Appendix 2).
Census 2011 reports 2,055 empty dwellings in Ards
Borough, although does not distinguish vacant from
second/holiday homes. At any point in time a
number of dwellings are vacant as part of the
normal turnover in ownership or tenancy. In order to
avoid blight caused by long term empty dwellings,
the Housing Executive will investigate the potential
for returning them to use to meet housing need.
In response to the draft Housing Strategy for
Northern Ireland, the Housing Executive highlighted
that housing-led regeneration programmes were
essential to meeting housing need and maintaining
stock fit for purpose in both urban and rural areas.
Socio-economic planning
The population of Ards Borough increased by 6.6% between 2001 and 2011 and is
projected to increase a further 5.7% by 2021. The number of households is also
projected to increase 14.2% by 2021 (see Table 1). Notably, the population is
ageing; it is projected that by 2021 older people will represent 21.6% of the
population in the borough. Changing demographics, particularly in age profile and
average household size, are important factors when considering density and design
of new housing.
17