A woman in her 70s says she is being left homeless thanks to Housing Executive plans to demolish two tower blocks in Dunmurry.
Marie Cunningham has lived in Rathmoyne House for over 40 years but says she “felt forced” to accept a “poor” financial offer for her flat ahead of bulldozers moving in next July.
The demolition is part of the Housing Executive’s £308 million Tower Block Action Plan aimed at replacing ageing tower blocks with new homes.
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But 76-year-old Marie says she feels she has no where to go thanks to being a private homeowner as opposed to a Housing Executive tenant.
She said: “I think the Executive brought all this about after the Grenfell disaster. There was no word of it before and now I just don’t know what I am going to do, especially at my age.
“I felt so low this morning, just thinking about how I’m going to pack up all my belongings after all these years to move out of my own home. I don’t know where I am going to go to.
“We were told in Margaret Thatcher’s time we could own our own homes and now look at what is happening to me. My home is being knocked down. There has been a terrible lack of communication from the Executive. There’s nobody really left in the flats now, but I am here.”
Marie added: “I had to even go and seek legal advice to get a solicitor to look in to putting me on a list for Executive housing and I just don’t think that will even happen for me. They (NIHE) valued this flat some time ago, but mortgages and house prices have changed so much even in the last few weeks. What am I going to be able to afford?
“In a letter (Oct 2022 - seen by the local democracy service) they sent me (NIHE) they called this ‘voluntary acquistion’, but I felt forced to take the offer as they would have moved for ‘compulsory purchase’ and got me out anyway.
“The money they have offered isn’t going to allow me to rent for long or buy me a new house and at my age I won’t be getting a mortgage.”
The two high rise blocks of Rathmoyne and Coolmoyne, opposite the Seymour estate and built in 1966, are due to be demolished in July 2023 or as soon as the flats are “cleared of residents”.
However, according to the local community association, vulnerable people including those affected by domestic violence are said to have been given temporary accommodation at the towers.
The business case for the tearing down of the Dunmurry blocks and the redevelopment will see £6.8m spent to deliver the scheme.
Previous NIHE tenant Jane Huddlestone is one of “78 tenants” who have been rehoused by the Executive into new modern accommodation such as the nearby Redwood Mews.
She said: “When it came to being told we had to move out, we got organised into a community association and pushed for homes to be built for us.
“On my count, there were 56 flats with 112 residents and there are 17 left and they still don’t know what is going to happen to them. Some people (NIHE tenants) were waiting for over three months for keys to the new apartments as there was a backlog in the system.
“The over 55s were moved into Redwood Mews, but under 55s were spread across Northern Ireland even up to Portrush. The NIHE is actually still using the towers to move new people in that may be single with children or homeless.
“The sad thing is, some people have been moved into the other tower blocks close by and those poor people are going to have to go through all this torture again when the Executive tears them down in about five or 10 years time.”
A Lisburn Castlereagh rep has weighed in on what he says is a “homeless” situation being created by the Housing Executive.
Lisburn North councillor, Jonathan Craig (DUP) said: “The NIHE is going to be making these private tenant people homeless with the demolition of the towers.
“The walls of the towers are just single concrete and there can be no exterior insulation put on them after the tragedy of Grenfell. So we are looking at home owners, some of many years, being effectively put on the streets to gain points to be put back into a NIHE housing system of backlogs. Something that they had got out of when they had bought their own homes decades ago.”
A Housing Executive spokesperson said: “Our Tower Blocks Action Plan was approved by the board in March 2019 and by the Department for Communities in August 2019.
“Prior to these approvals, a full, public consultation was carried out in 2018. Our overarching aim is that everyone has a safe and comfortable place to live. Prior to the launch of our Tower Block Action Plan, the estimated investment required for our tower blocks was in excess of £308 million.
“We believe this money will be better spent on replacing the tower blocks with new accommodation.”
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