An evicted single mother of four has urged the government to intervene to see housing built on the largest publicly owned vacant site in the city of Belfast.
Marwa Basi and her children are currently living on the north coast after having been evicted in Belfast, and undertake five-hour round trips every day for school and training.
A campaign group has said she is just one of thousands on the waiting list for a home in Belfast while the 25-acre site, which previously hosted Mackie’s factory, lies empty.
Figures from March 2024 indicate there are more than 86,000 people (more than 47,000 households) on the housing waiting list in Northern Ireland, and more than 5,000 children living in homeless households in Belfast alone.
While a new greenway recently opened at the Mackies site where the former factory, which closed in 1999, stood, the rest of the site remains vacant and is zoned for industry.
A group called Take Back The City coalition has been consulting with the community and devised a master plan for the future of the site, the majority of which is owned by the Department for Communities.
They are proposing around 800 homes on the site as well as business space, which they have said could
Marissa McMahon, assistant director at the Participation and Practice of Rights (PPR), which supports the coalition, said they have presented their master plan and results of their consultation to communities minister Gordon Lyons and economy minister Conor Murphy, as well as officials at Belfast City Council, Invest NI and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.
She said the land could easily be rezoned for housing of different types of ownership, adding that there is huge support for their plans for homes to be built on the site.
She said Mr Lyons had refused to meet with the group so they delivered a copy of the plans to his offices and the consultation responses.
Ms McMahon also urged parties on Belfast City Council to back their plans.
“There is huge need in west Belfast for new homes, and in the immediate area of the Mackies site, why wouldn’t you build homes on it?” she said.
Ms Basi said her family is just one of hundreds of families who could benefit from housing on the site.
She fled war in Sudan with her children and was initially housed in Belfast.
However last autumn they had to leave their home in Belfast after being granted refugee status.
Due to pressures on housing, they were relocated to the north coast despite Ms Basi’s children being at schools in Belfast. They have to make a five-hour round trip every day to attend school and training.
“It’s two hours on the train every day, we have to get up at 4.30am every day,” she said.
“There are other families in my situation. It doesn’t make sense that there is a large empty site where they are not building houses.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Communities said: “The Department has an agreement in principle to transfer land at the former Mackies site to Belfast City Council for its Peace IV funded ‘Reconnecting Open Spaces’ project and any future phases of the greenway.”
