Policy proposals to expand open market expected soon

Environment & Infrastructure has completed consultation outside the States but is waiting for responses from other committees.

Publication of a new open market inscriptions policy was described as ‘fairly imminent’ by E&I president Lindsay de Sausmarez.

At Wednesday’s States meeting, former treasury lead Mark Helyar said he was disappointed that Deputy de Sausmarez omitted information about the review of open market policies from her committee’s latest update statement to the Assembly.

‘I was somewhat concerned that open market inscriptions, which could benefit the island’s economy immediately, and I mean immediately, was not even merited the priority to be mentioned in the update,’ said Deputy Helyar.

‘There is unprecedented pressure for prestigious open market property in the island at the moment, which could valuably assist the exchequer in collecting some more tax.’

He asked for an assurance that E&I was treating the work as a priority and wanted to know when it would be concluded.

Deputy de Sausmarez claimed that the work to change open market policies was left out of her update statement only because previous speculation had unsettled that sector of the housing market, and she assured him that it was a priority.

‘We are hoping we will be able to talk about that very soon,’ she said.

‘It was a conscious decision not to make a song and dance about it. But I can absolutely assure him that a very large amount of very detailed consultation with a wide range of stakeholders has been under way over a good amount of time.

‘We have worked on this policy iteratively together and we have then gone to the relevant committees and we are waiting for their final feedback before we can make a final decision.’

It was initially hoped that allowing new high-end developments to be inscribed on the open market could raise an average of £5m. a year for the public purse.

But the most-recent draft of the policy change seen by the Guernsey Press indicated that the States was now expecting to raise an average in the region of £1.5m. a year.

E&I is understood to have dropped the limit on the number of new open market inscriptions, from potentially 10 to 15 a year to an average of just three, following concerns from industry and open market residents about the possible effect on the value of their properties.

At one time, about 1,700 properties were registered on the open market, but in recent years the number has declined to about 1,500.