TWENTY Protestant and Catholic householders have moved into the first integrated public housing estate in Northern Ireland for almost 40 years.

The families have signed up to a “neighbourhood charter” that bans partisan flags, murals, graffiti and painted kerbstones on Carran Crescent, a £2m housing scheme on the outskirts of Enniskillen. The estate, to be opened tomorrow, is intended as a model for the province, showing how the rigid sectarian segregation that characterises public sector housing could be dissolved.

The Northern Ireland Housing Executive, landlord for 100,000 properties, says nearly all its 600 estates are segregated, with up to 97% of residents either Catholic or Protestant.

The allegiance of the residents is often loudly declared with lavishly painted murals, daubed kerbstones and graffiti that baldly instructs “Taigs” or “Prods” to keep out.

The British government estimates it costs £1 billion a year to maintain segregation, including duplicated community facilities. However, the neighbourhood charter for Carran Crescent requires residents to commit to promoting a safe and welcoming community based on mutual respect and tolerance of cultural and religious beliefs.

They are also committed to complying with a “good relations” programme, obliging them to respect neighbours and property, maintain the environment and keep children under control. The housing executive has appointed a “good relations officer” to support residents and take the lead in tackling antisocial behaviour.

Claire Foley, an official of the Ulidia Housing Association, which part-financed the development with the government and will manage it, said: “Although the residents have only recently moved in, they are already linking up with their new neighbours and are excited to be part of this development. Several of them have told us they enjoy the peaceful atmosphere and say it is the best place they have ever lived.”

Michelle Johnston, a single mother from a Catholic background who has moved in with her son, aged 11, and daughter, 7, has been on the housing list for four years.

“I was in a mixed marriage and on other estates you would feel intimidated, and concerned about letting the children out to play,” she said. “But there is no problem here. It is a good way to be, living together and the children playing together.”

Carran Crescent offers a cluster of two- and three-bedroom houses as well as two bungalows for single people. Elma Newberry, who runs the housing executive’s community cohesion unit, said: “Shared-future housing offers the opportunity for people to choose to live in quality, modern accommodation with others regardless of their religion or race.

“It is not an attempt to force integration on anybody.”

The unit was set up three years ago after the executive developed a community relations policy and a strategy to help fulfil its duty under the 1998 Northern Ireland Act.

But with its housing estates segregated and paramilitary influence and intimidation a dominant factor, a seismic attitude change is required if the executive is to break the grip of sectarian polarisation. Only 600 of 32,000 families on the housing list have so far expressed a willingness to live in a mixed community.

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