Housing law will be far-reaching

THE Chief Pleas agenda for the Christmas meeting on 19 January was published this week and among the matters to be discussed then is a new housing occupancy law.

This particular piece of legislation may well have far-reaching effects - not only on the issue of occupancy, but also on the value of certain properties that may well be re-classified. The current situation - as I understand it - is that broadly speaking, properties built after the original law was introduced in 1976 can be occupied only by those who have lived in Sark for 15 years or more and are classified as local market dwellings.

All other properties - constructed prior to 1976 or built on the footprint of a pre-76 construction - are classified as open market and can be occupied by anyone, regardless of their length of residency.

A public meeting was held some weeks ago at which the Development Control Committee disclosed that the document it had released prior to that discussion was something like the 12th draft - a testament, if nothing else, to the fact that the committee certainly didn't accept the first draft drawn up by the Law Officers.

At the public meeting, a number of issues were raised and in the report that accompanies the draft law, reference is made to this. Unfortunately, although the committee says that 'further amendments' to the draft have been made, the report does not identify them.

That means that unless one is prepared (or indeed able) to go through the 17 pages of the draft law and the four pages of a draft ordinance and compare both with existing legislation, one has no idea which suggestions or anomalies identified at the public meeting have been included in these 'further amendments'.

Not the easiest of tasks at any time, but when the period between the agenda's publication and the sitting itself includes the Christmas and New Year break - when many people who might be affected by this potentially far-reaching legislation have other things on their minds - it is far from an ideal example of the sort of public inclusion that we were promised would accompany this all-singing, all-dancing democratic process.

I hate to criticise Development Control chairman Tony Dunks - there are others I would criticise at the drop of a hat - because he is a hard-working and conscientious conseiller who, to his credit, has involved the public in this exercise, if only the once.

That said, it would have been far simpler to either identify in his report which changes to the previous draft the committee is proposing or, far better, to call another public meeting in the new year and delay the debate until the Easter meeting of Chief Pleas. The haste in this matter is as unnecessary as it borders on the indecent.

Sadly, if the experience of the last two years is anything to go by, this piece of legislation is likely to be approved by Sark's conseillers with the absolute minimum of discussion. I'd love to be proved wrong, but I'm not holding my breath.

On a brighter note, it is appropriate at this time of the year to express thanks to those who serve this small community, often out of the goodness of their hearts without thought of reward. Sark prides itself on its ability to function with the absolute minimum of paid staff. It is very much a case of the majority feeding off the goodwill of a small minority.

As a member of that majority, may I thank the minority and wish them - and everyone else, particularly those overseas who read this column and those closer to home who have suffered illness or bereavement - all they wish themselves this Christmas.

n The email address for comment is fallesark@sark.net.