AQW 15929/17-22

Miss Rachel Woods
Green Party
North Down

Tabled Date: 05/03/2021
Answered On Date: 15/03/2021
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister for Infrastructure whether her Department has any plans to redevelop or upgrade the area around the Kinnegar Lagoons and Tillysburn River near the Belfast Harbour Estate.

Answer:

Under the Living With Water Programme’s (LWWP) Belfast Strategic Drainage Infrastructure Plan (Belfast SDIP), my Department is planning a number of drainage and wastewater related improvements around the Kinnegar Lagoons and Tillysburn River, near the Belfast Harbour Estate.

Detailed appraisals are underway to inform the scope of the capital projects and to enable consultation on the more detailed plans. However, at this stage, it is likely that the works will include:

Replacement of Kinnegar wastewater treatment works, expected to commence around 2024. At this stage, it is intended that this will take place within the footprint of land owned by NI Water; and

Work to sewerage networks to provide increased capacity, to reduce the risk of out of sewer flooding and address the pollution entering watercourses, the lagoons and the sea from a number of unsatisfactory intermittent discharges, from combined sewer overflows.

This investment will build on improvements already completed in the area in 2017, which resulted in a major programme of sewer laying, tunnelling work and the construction of a major pumping station. That Environmental Improvement Scheme was instrumental in protecting the local environment and reducing odours affecting residents in the area.

The pace at which this investment can proceed is dependent on the provision by the NI Executive of funding for the implementation of the LWWP’s Belfast SDIP and the ongoing technical appraisals and business cases.