Ulster Unionist Infrastructure Spokesperson John Stewart MLA, has called on the Executive to stop hiding behind the courts and act to deliver the long-awaited A5, while putting in place a climate framework that is both lawful and workable so that vital infrastructure can actually proceed.

John Stewart MLA said:

"For years Sinn Féin has insisted that climate ambition and infrastructure delivery can go hand in hand; yet on their watch the A5 has been stopped in the courts again, because the Executive signed off the scheme without ever doing the climate planning the law requires.

"That is the heart of the problem. The Ulster Unionist Party has consistently warned that ambition without a credible plan to deliver it is no use to anyone. The court did not say this road can never be built; it said it cannot be built until the Executive demonstrates how it complies with our climate obligations. Sinn Féin's answer has been to appeal and delay, rather than to fix the framework and get spades in the ground.

"We support climate action, but the targets and the planning behind them have to be deliverable and grounded in the practical realities facing Northern Ireland. A framework that blocks the safest version of one of our most dangerous roads, with no route to actually delivering it, is failing on every count.

"The A5 must move forward. Families have waited too long, too many lives have been lost, and communities west of the Bann have been failed for decades by delay and indecision.

"This cannot stop at the A5 either. The same planning paralysis is stalling housing, investment and infrastructure right across Northern Ireland. The long-overdue upgrade of the A1 corridor must follow; it remains one of our most strategically important routes, yet motorists still face avoidable safety risks and bottlenecks because of repeated political delay. Also the York Street Interchange, the missing link between our three busiest motorways and a scheme talked about for well over a decade, must finally be delivered rather than left to gather dust as a line in successive budgets."

Supporting the call, Ulster Unionist Agriculture Spokesperson Robbie Butler MLA, said the way to deliver schemes like the A5 is to bring rural communities with you, not to override them.

Robbie Butler MLA said:

"Much of the opposition to the A5 has come from farmers and landowners facing the loss of land that has been in their families for generations. That tells you something: you do not deliver major infrastructure by treating the people in its path as an afterthought.

"Minister Muir has a central role to play in ensuring that farmers and landowners affected by these schemes are treated fairly, engaged with meaningfully, and properly recompensed. Get that right and you build the consent that gets projects delivered; get it wrong and you guarantee more years in court.

"For many families, schemes such as the A5 will mean generational change through the loss of land, the severance of farms and real upheaval to rural businesses. Where people are asked to make sacrifices for the wider public good, government has a duty to ensure fair treatment and long-term support.

"Northern Ireland cannot modernise its infrastructure or meet its environmental goals by loading disproportionate burdens onto rural communities already under immense pressure. We need balanced, sensible policy that protects the environment, delivers safer roads, and respects the people whose livelihoods and communities are directly affected."