Support for GHA taking States’ housing stock to GHA
HANDING over the entire States social housing stock to the Guernsey Housing Association won support at a public meeting to consider how to tackle the island’s housing crisis.
Lots of potential solutions were aired, with some members of the public calling for fundamental change and an end to States’ restraint.
A vote on whether people had confidence that tangible progress would be achieved within this political term, found that the audience was fairly split between yes, no, and unsure.
The public meeting, which was organised by the Guernsey Party, was well attended with lots of property developers, builders, mortgage brokers and estate agents.
People struggling to get onto the housing ladder also spoke about their experiences.
Mortgage broker Pierre Blampied, from SPF Private Clients, was in the audience, and he said it was a very useful meeting.
He said that allowing the Guernsey Housing Association to take over all States housing would create a win-win scenario.
‘There’s two separate entities looking after social housing and it should all come together in my view, and it will mean reduced civil service costs. Deputies Mark Helyar and Peter Ferbrache are obviously agreeable with that idea, but it will take time.’
There was unanimous agreement from the audience that there was an urgent need for more affordable housing.
The Guernsey Party issued a discussion paper with ideas on developing more affordable housing back in May.
Deputy Nick Moakes from the party said the idea of re-purposing existing property gained support.
‘There was recognition that we do need more housing, and particularly affordable housing, but that we don’t want to see green field sites built on, and we don’t want to see the whole of the island being concreted over.
‘So the idea of using empty space above shops was well received, converting office buildings that are unused currently into flats, and this idea that this might rejuvenate town centres, so the buzzword I used was that we need to rethink, so that town centres aren’t just retail centres and can become live, work and play centres.’
While the audience was not entirely convinced that action would be taken this political term, Deputy Moakes said he came away from the meeting feeling optimistic that change would happen.
‘I think it will, I really do, I think there’s a strong sense in the Assembly that we need to get on with this, so I’m very hopeful that we will all pull together and some of the things that we spoke about, and perhaps some of the things that people brought to the table will help solve the housing crisis.
‘The most important thing is that we all work together, that’s government and private sector.
‘We want to get all of the various deputies on board and work across the assembly, and across all the various committees, because no one committee owns everything. ‘
