Ulster Unionist MLA for Fermanagh and South Tyrone Diana Armstrong has called on the Department for Infrastructure and Land and Property Services to set out clearly how farmers and landowners along the A5 route will be compensated, following today’s Court of Appeal judgment clearing the way for the scheme to proceed.

Diana Armstrong said:

“Today's judgment brings a measure of clarity after years of uncertainty, and that will matter to many families across the West.

“But there is a question arising from this ruling that nobody in the Department has answered, and it matters enormously to farming families along that route. If this scheme now proceeds and land is vested once again, at what date will that land be valued?

“I raised this directly with the Finance Minister last year. He told us compensation would be based on market values at the vesting date, yet his Department would not even confirm what agricultural land in County Tyrone was worth at that time. That question has gone unanswered ever since, and today it becomes urgent.

“These farmers had land taken from them in November 2024. It was handed back in June 2025 when the vesting orders were quashed. They have had two years of limbo, hedges cut, trees removed, boundaries redrawn and fields they could not plan around. Now they face the prospect of it happening all over again.

“Every other cost in this project moves with the market. Contractors, materials, labour, professional fees, all priced at today’s rates. Only the land taken from farmers is treated as if time has stood still. A farmer paid on a historic valuation cannot go out and buy replacement land in today’s market, and that is not fair treatment by any measure.

“I want the Department for Infrastructure and Land and Property Services to state clearly, now rather than in two years’ time, what valuation date will apply, how reinstatement costs will be settled, and when farmers can expect to be paid. These families are not an obstacle to this road. They are the people whose land is paying for it.

“I have today tabled Assembly Questions to both Ministers seeking answers on each of these points.”