The Construction Employers Federation (CEF) has presented evidence to the Northern Ireland Assembly's Committee for Infrastructure on the Water, Sustainable Drainage and Flood Management Bill, setting out practical steps to unlock stalled development caused by severe water and wastewater capacity constraints.

Giving evidence on 21 January, CEF chief executive Mark Spence appeared alongside David Magee (Antrim Construction), Sam McKee (Turley), Mark Hardy (Marrac Design) and David Fry (CEF), following the Committee's December visit to Antrim Construction's Belmont Hall scheme in Antrim.

CEF confirmed its support for the Bill and said that, when properly designed and implemented, sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) can improve amenity for homeowners and occupiers. It stressed, however, that the Department for Infrastructure's (DfI) separate consultation on SuDS guidance will be pivotal, as forthcoming guidance will shape how soft SuDS are mandated and delivered in practice well beyond the Committee's scrutiny of the Bill itself.

From engagement with officials, CEF distilled seven priority issues it believes require clear decisions and timely implementation:

• The SuDS approval body must be clearly identified and adequately resourced. While recognising the intentions behind the Storm Water Management Group, CEF said the timescales observed in soft SuDS pilot processes have been too long. It suggested a suitably resourced DfI Rivers could be an appropriate home for approvals going forward.

• Consistent, enforceable design guidance is needed across all planning authorities. CEF warned against a patchwork of approaches by different councils and said DfI's powers over the enforceability of guidance must be unambiguous. It also called for clarity on how planning authorities will treat designated SuDS areas during construction, arguing these could be appropriately used as silt management pits to comply with construction management plans.

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• Developers require certainty on policy implementation timelines. Many homebuilders are purchasing land now for delivery in three or more years, and current draft timelines suggest a crossover period. CEF said clarity is needed immediately on whether those timescales will be met.

• SuDS must count as open space. CEF estimated that a major site such as Belmont Hall could require around two acres for features like ponds. With major developments normally setting aside 10% for open space, SuDS features should be included within that quota to avoid further restricting housing capacity, with a consistent approach mandated across all councils.

• Application and maintenance costs must be defined early to safeguard site viability. CEF urged DfI to expedite work on the likely cost profile and to clarify whether a Welsh-style adoption and maintenance model is preferred. Policies on maintenance and adoption should be clear and robust from the outset and resist subjective interpretation.

• The extent of soft SuDS on sites needs definitive guidance. CEF said it understands from DfI that, owing to proposed uplifts to Building Regulations, the Department of Finance has requested that property-level SuDS are not advanced at this stage. It asked that this position be fully clarified as SuDS policy development proceeds.

• Retrofitting existing assets must be prioritised. CEF argued that mandating soft SuDS on new housing alone will not materially resolve the wastewater capacity bottleneck driving the housing crisis. It pointed to retrofitting proposals understood to be part of NI Water's PC28 plan and the initial £15m allocation from the Public Sector Transformation Fund, and called for these to be significantly advanced as PC28 commences.

Setting these recommendations in the context of the Infrastructure Minister's three‑pronged approach, CEF reiterated that tackling the wastewater infrastructure deficit requires a step change by DfI and the wider Executive.

On developer contributions, the Federation backed enabling voluntary contributions so developers can choose to upgrade specific NI Water assets to unlock their projects. However, it cautioned that such measures would have only a limited overall effect.

Addressing NI Water's long-term funding, CEF highlighted a report it published last June with the NI Chamber and the Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations, based on research by Grant Thornton and Turley Economics, proposing an Infrastructure Levy to close NI Water's investment gap and support a multi‑year, sustainable model to advance stalled housing, industrial and regeneration schemes while responding to environmental pressures.

CEF said it has updated the report's figures this week to reflect NI Water's anticipated submission to the Utility Regulator for PC28, the Draft Budget figures and DfI's baseline allocation to NI Water of £321m per annum. On this basis, it identified a £1.29bn funding shortfall in PC28. The proposed solution is an average Infrastructure Levy of £1.25 per household per week — about £65 per year — supporting borrowing with an annual repayment of £55.9m.

Crucially, the proposal would preserve NI Water's current governance model and public ownership, with at least £400m per year continuing as public subvention. CEF described the approach as progressive, protecting the most vulnerable while providing a credible, sustainable route to address what it called the principal inhibitor to economic growth and a driver of environmental decline in Northern Ireland.