Demand for housing could see new States houses being built

Private developers may also be invited to build social rental and partial ownership properties as the Guernsey Housing Association’s house-building targets fall short of the hundreds of new homes the States has agreed are necessary in the next four years.

‘One or two locally-based companies have expressed an interest, although they’d have to sign up to certain criteria, and the States could add to its current stock of 1,500 by 100 or 200 going in-house,’ said Peter Roffey, president of Employment & Social Security, which is responsible for social housing.

‘I’m not the least bit critical of the GHA. They’ve built more than 1,000 units of accommodation.

‘However, the GHA wants to move into a period of consolidated, moderate growth and we need a rapid expansion of house building.’

Earlier this year the States agreed the island needed 721 additional units for social rental or partial ownership by 2027.

‘The States hasn’t built any social housing for many years, but we have to maintain a backstop if the GHA targets are not sufficiently ambitious to meet the requirement,’ said Deputy Roffey. ‘The GHA does not have a monopoly.’

When questioned in the States last week, Deputy Roffey indicated he was also open to one or more other providers of social housing setting up alongside the GHA, despite previously rejecting the idea owing to the island’s relatively small size.

‘There’s nothing to stop someone seeking to register as a social housing provider so long as they fit all the criteria and tick all the boxes, so if anyone out there is looking to do so, I would be delighted to see that happening, and I think maybe the States should be looking to facilitate it,’ he said.

Deputy Roffey told the States that the stalled development of Parc Le Lacheur, formerly Kenilworth Vinery, ‘would have moved forward more quickly than it has’ if construction had been down to the States.

‘This House has, over the last decade or two, decided to outsource the development of social housing, but I do think it’s reaching the point where we have to revisit that policy and find different ways around this.

‘We have a GHA which is doing brilliant work but has reached a phase of its development where it’s being rather more cautious in the way it’s moving forward, just at a time when this Assembly wants the opposite.’

GHA chief executive Victoria Slade said the non-profit housing association needed to ‘strike the right balance between investing resources in existing and new homes’, given that its below-market rents ‘pay for everything we do’.

‘As a landlord, we need to maintain what we have, as well as try to help meet housing need, just when inflation and interest rates have created difficult conditions for many businesses,’ she said.

She argued that the GHA was advancing new sites as quickly as possible and called its position ‘responsible, rather than cautious’.

‘The States is the strategic housing authority for the island, which means it is exploring all sorts of options for re-balancing an overheated housing market.

‘It’s for the States to determine the form and function of any new entity.

‘As a housing association, we are getting on with what we need to do to bring sites forward, and the scale of housing need on the island means we are one part of much wider solutions needed to tackle the imbalance in the housing market.’