New social homes in Northern Ireland will be more energy efficient, it emerged last night.

Speaking at the Northern Ireland Forum on the New Housing Agenda for Northern Ireland yesterday, Social Development Minister, Margaret Ritchie MLA, said new social homes built to energy efficient standards could slash running costs by up to 10% for tenants.

Miss Ritchie stressed that housing is her number one priority and vowed the target of delivering 5,250 new homes in the province over the next three years is “non-negotiable”.

She also assured the Forum the problems associated with affordability are being addressed. The Minister said:

“Social housing will be more energy efficient and environmentally friendly as a result of my Procurement Strategy which will create efficiency savings of up to 10% and encourage improved quality in design and greater use of non- traditional methods of construction.”

Miss Ritchie vowed to increase the number of homes in the province, saying this was achieved in her first year.

She added, however, there is still a lot of work to do and building must continue to ensure targets were met: “Whilst the targets set to deliver 5,250 new homes in the next three years are challenging, these are non-negotiable and will be met.”