‘Go West’ to find new sites for homes
EXISTING local centres could be expanded and a new one created, as the Development & Planning Authority grapples with the challenge of finding enough land to meet Guernsey’s housing demands.
This week it launched a call for sites which could be allocated for housing.
The States Strategic Housing Indicator 2023-2027 suggests that about 1,500 new homes would be needed over the five years, with more than half of them coming from the private sector.
But with most of the existing housing allocation sites having been developed, new sites are needed.
New development is meant to be focused in the main centres – Town and the Bridge – as well as the seven local centres, which include St Peter’s, Cobo and St Martin’s.
‘We are looking at local centres and we are looking at the potential to expand some of them,’ DPA president Victoria Oliver said.
She added that there is also potential to create a new local centre, but would not confirm where was being considered.
She appreciated there had been a lot of development in the local centres, but by directing housing to those areas, it prevented the erosion of open space in the rest of the island.
She added that having the housing in the local centres should not stop them being nice places to live.
‘We want to look at amenity space, to make sure there are green lungs,’ she said.
‘It would be something like the green belt in England. We want to protect green land. We want to protect what we love about Guernsey.’
She said it was vital to work with Environment & Infrastructure when it came to create new housing, as the infrastructure such as roads and schools needed to be able to cope.
Many of the local centres have seen major developments, such as the creation of 25 new homes on the site of two houses off Route de Carteret at Cobo and 16 new homes on a green field by Manor Stores in St Martin’s.
But the local centres around Forest Church, Forest School and St Peter’s village have seen much less development.
Deputy Oliver said from an infrastructure perspective, these would be well placed for more homes.
‘I think if you look at the road network and the school capacity, we would want to build more out west,’ she said.
‘However a lot of the land is classed as agriculture priority areas, which we can’t use it for housing. We are always on a tightrope and always trying to balance the need for employment, agriculture and housing.’
Deputy Oliver said finding the land was not the only challenge.
‘The building sector is building about 100 houses a year,’ she said, noting that the housing indicator would require this to go up sharply.
Housing sites should be capable of delivering five or more dwellings and should be at least 0.25 acres.
Employment land sites of any size will be considered. Employment development includes offices, industry and storage uses.
Further details of the calls for sites, forms and guidance on how to prepare a map, can be found at gov.gg/IDP-review. Sites should be submitted by 13 October.
