Building up for housing ‘would not be popular’
Building high-rise blocks would face ‘cultural resistance’ if suggested as a way of tackling the island’s housing crisis, Environment & Infrastructure president Lindsay de Saumarez told a public Scrutiny Management hearing.
‘We recognise the use of land is an issue and how we use it is super important,’ she said.
‘I’m always keen to look at space efficiency, which is why I think transport is a key part of that. If you do transport well you use space in an efficient manner – where it doesn’t translate into physical reality is cultural resistance to that.’
Providing more affordable housing in Guernsey is a priority in the Government Work Plan.
‘The opposite of building within a focused area is sprawl. It seems like it would make transport better but it doesn’t, it exacerbates transport problems and sprawl is expensive,’ Deputy de Sausmarez said.
Plans were released last week for Leale’s Yard, the 13-acre derelict industrial site off the Bridge. It is planned that 320 new homes will be built there, as well as a new supermarket and a multi-storey car park.
A significant number of the new dwellings proposed should be allocated for social housing under the GP11 planning policy.
Deputy de Sausmarez hoped that new developments would be considered alongside the States’ forthcoming population policy review.
‘We are very keen that the population review is considered as simple as possible with housing, because an understanding of land use requirements might be is going to be a really important factor with population.’
E&I vice-president Deputy Sam Haskins said he appreciated there was only a finite space of land available for new developments.
‘Speaking personally about building up, not out, if you have a finite amount of space how can you extrapolate it out, or we use up all of our green fields? And how do you alleviate transport issues with the location with the population in that area?’
