News

Turley leading the way on sustainable drainage in Northern Ireland

Last week, Head of Strategic Communications, John Davison and Director, Sam McKee welcomed Northern Ireland's Infrastructure Minister, Liz Kimmins MLA to a site visit at a ground-breaking Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS) at Antrim Construction Company (ACC)'s 390-home Belmont Hall development.

The development includes the first ‘Soft SuDS’ basins delivered in Northern Ireland. Minister Kimmins' Department is currently consulting on SuDS in new housing developments, to inform the anticipated Water, Sustainable Drainage and Flood Management Bill, so it was natural that she and her officials would come to Belmont Hall to view and discuss.

We have been a key project partner on the Belmont Hall project, providing Planning services for the project. Without an established system in place for consenting Soft SuDS in Northern Ireland, we helped guide ACC through an eight-year process to both secure planning approval for the SuDS basins and to manage community and political expectations.

Ahead of the site visit, we worked with ACC,  the project's engineers and the Construction Employers Federation to develop a briefing paper setting out the history of the development and a series of clear asks of the Department in relation to sustainable drainage. Download the briefing document below:

This visit built upon work  we have previously undertaken alongside the Construction Employers Federation, the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations and Grant Thornton, which sought to set out a model by which Northern Ireland's ailing wastewater infrastructure could be made financially and environmentally sustainable. Delivery of SuDS was one of the recommendations of this work, which is set out in more detail in a joint Position Paper published in June of this year.

For more information on our work on wastewater infrastructure in Northern Ireland, please contact John Davison and Sam McKee.

7 October 2025