HOUSING in rural areas has been “eroded over the years” as more and more people “lose confidence in the system”, Fermanagh and Omagh District Council has heard. 
At a meeting at Enniskillen Townhall last week, Councillors discussed a letter by Rural Housing Association, which provides social housing, after it announced a £13 million investment. 
While the association said it is “always keen to provide new social housing” in the area it added that “we are only able to build in areas where the Northern Ireland Housing Executive specify there is adequate demand for social housing.”
The Housing Executive’s current projection for housing need in the Fermanagh and Omagh Council area over the next five years is 145 with 139 of them projected for the main towns of Omagh and Enniskillen. 
In its letter the association said its mission is to provide social housing in areas with a population less than 5,000 and therefore “would not consider building in larger towns such as Omagh and Enniskillen.”
It says the remaining units of need are focused in Arney/Bellanaleck (two), Gortin (one), Kinawley (one) and Maguiresbridge (two). The association with support from the Housing Executive has recently agreed the purchase of three newly built properties in Maguiresbridge and is hopeful to have these occupied before the end of March 2018.
Independent Councillor Josephine Deehan told the meeting that the last number of decades has seen a “gradual erosion in rural areas.”
SDLP’s Patricia Rogers pointed out that “a lot of retired people are looking for affordable housing” while Sinn Fein’s Brian McCaffrey said: “In my own area people no longer have any confidence.”
It was a view shared by Councillor John Feely who said “people have no trust in the system.”
“They know there is no social housing in rural areas... but there is a demand for them.”
“The system is wrong,” he said.