States has ‘done everything it can’ to stimulate house-building

Lyndon Trott yesterday addressed a Chamber of Commerce lunch on a number of major issues facing the island.

Deputy Trott said that it was not the fault of government that the modular construction supplier at Leale’s Yard has gone bust, nor that local construction sites had not been progressed since the States removed the planning policy GP11, which meant that sites above a certain size had to allow for a certain percentage of affordable property to be developed.

External factors, including the Ukraine war, had impacted on the supply of materials, and global inflation had seen house-building costs rise.

And while the States wanted to see house prices come down, Deputy Trott said he wanted to avoid the kind of crash that has seen Jersey house prices fall 8% in the past year.

‘That’s too aggressive, and if it was compounded quarter-on-quarter I think that would become a problem for many, but we do want our affordability to come down.

‘We’re doing our best, but government is a facilitator.

‘Government shouldn’t be expected to be a provider.

‘It should make the environment within its powers as easy for business as possible. I believe we’ve tried our hardest.’

Deputy Trott also admitted that the States – and the private sector – had failed to provide the infrastructure development needed.

On a visit to Biberach in Germany, he said, he had seen 14 cranes on the skyline for a town with a population smaller than Guernsey.

‘I don’t think there’s any over Guernsey at the moment, and I think that’s deeply regrettable, but I don’t think government should burden all of the blame on this.

‘Government has made a few mistakes. We’re not investing anywhere near enough in our infrastructure, that’s obvious.

‘One of the differentiators between us and Jersey is that they have invested far more aggressively in their infrastructure, with more to come, where we haven’t done anywhere near enough.’