Loss of hospital site a ‘missed opportunity’

A BRIEFING provided by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) to Fermanagh and Omagh District Council has heard how a former hospital site was bought by a private developer, with one member describing this as a “missed opportunity” to address the shortage of social housing.

Cllr Emmet McAleer, who represents Mid Tyrone, raised the issue of the sale of the former Tyrone County Hospital site in Omagh and queried, “How it ended up in the hands of a private developer, given the housing need across the area?”

NIHE Regional Place Shaper Ailbhe Hickey explained the site was “offered out across the public sector partnership. The Housing Executive expressed an interest for housing, but as we could not take this forward ourselves, we proceeded to nominate a housing association to investigate the potential”.

When this was done it was established the site was very large and, “It could have delivered more housing in terms of what was needed through social demand. We were interested in seeing the delivery of social and affordable housing, but the association felt they weren’t able to make it stack up and didn’t take it forward.”

After this, the site was released onto the open market.

However, Ms Hickey pointed out there remained potential as the site “could come back as a possible scheme.”

“A private developer could look at it and come up with a workable solution from a mixed tender perspective and we could engage with them again at a later date. We could see social housing in the future, but unfortunately the mechanism at that time didn’t lend itself”.

Cllr McAleer responded, “The plans are for 170 units on the site and the housing need expressed in Omagh was in the region of 154. With it sitting for six months on the open market, my concern is the cost for security topping £0.5 million was playing into it. Given the interest in the site location and councillors previously speaking of people locally looking for affordable social housing are having to move to other areas, it seems to have been very much a missed opportunity.”

He concluded, “It’s very disappointing to hear this didn’t proceed and it’s possibly being a bit hopeful to think a private developer may come back with the public good at heart. But stranger things may happen and we can live in hope.”

By Tanya Fowles, Local Democracy Reporter