Housing committee ‘needs power to remove blockers’
THE Guernsey Construction Forum has welcomed the setting up of a new States housing committee, as long as it has the power to make meaningful change.
The States decided on Thursday, after two days of debate across two separate meetings, to set up a new dedicated committee to tackle the island’s housing crisis.
The successful requete will see a new housing committee set up at the start of the next States term in July.
GCF chairman John Bampkin said the States needed to intervene in the private sector to deliver houses.
‘This is either a crisis for the island or it’s not, and if it is, they have to intervene,’ he said.
‘It’s only by doing this and challenging themselves to deliver a number of units each year that they will understand what is working and what’s not, and more importantly why.’
He said he could see four benefits to the change, including being able to hold deputies and civil servants to account.
‘We need it to have full accountability for the number of housing units constructed in Guernsey each year compared to the population management targets.’
He said a second benefit was that the committee would able to make quicker decisions.
‘It has to have the power and mandate to control, within the parameters set out in the strategic plans, what is and isn’t awarded in terms of planning consent, what constraints there are around environment, biodiversity, taxes and initiatives that will either hinder or encourage accommodation to be built.’
‘It also needs the power and mandate to remove blockers on an individual site-by-site basis. This may mean challenging the States themselves about planning laws and the IDP strategy.’
He said the new committee needed to work closely with the newly-formed Housing Forum.
‘This could be joint ventures like we are seeing at the moment between the Guernsey Housing Association and private developer Infinity, or working with some of our financial institutions to raise funds,’ he said.
‘Hopefully this would also include converting existing buildings – we do not want any green fields built on if we can possibly avoid it.’
Mr Bampkin said that overall the island had to be far more strategic in its thinking.
‘We have to get ahead of that curve – that way we can build the right number of houses in the right places at the right time,’ he said.
‘We cannot afford for our younger generations to have no option but to either live via the bank of mum and dad, or have to move away from our islands altogether, and we cannot afford to lose our finance sector which produces more tax revenue than the next nine industries joined together.’
