Advisers advise, deputies decide
THE continued and elongated debate over the strengths – and more persistently, the weaknesses – of the affordable housing planning policy GP11 will run into the States Assembly this week.
Change seems inevitable. Those defending GP11 might have a case on the principle, but the fact is that it hasn’t worked at all. Now the main choice for deputies apparently being between a two-year ‘suspension’ or zero-rating of the proposed affordable housing quotient, or five years.
As we have argued, this will place the onus on the construction industry and developers to start building, because the figures for new builds set against planning permission granted over the past few years makes for poor reading indeed. Whether GP11 is responsible or not, we may well soon see.
The lesson away from the States chamber will be for deputies to learn how they can go about influencing policy. The level of criticism thrown at staff within the Development & Planning Authority by its political membership in the past few days is quite shocking. But so too is the inability for some deputies to properly challenge advice given, pursue their own if required, and produce the results they might be looking for.
It appears that on GP11, deputies have overlooked one of Mrs Thatcher’s famous aphorisms – ‘Advisers advise, ministers decide’.