Development & Planning Authority president Neil Inder has declared that once the GHA had built housing on sites where permission was already in place, it would cease building and instead focus on maintaining its existing homes.
‘They are effectively going to become largely rent collectors and maintenance people,’ he said.
‘There is going to come a point, I believe, after Channel Island Tyres and the Mallard, when they are stopping building.
‘They’ve got no intention of building beyond these two sites potentially.’
The GHA has not spoken publicly about development plans on any other sites, but chief executive Vic Slade denied that it would soon exit the housebuilding market.
‘As an independent, not-for-profit housing association, we have to look after existing homes and services as well as delivering new ones, which means striking a balance between the two, rather than one at the expense of the other,’ she said.
The GHA intends to complete about 100 new homes over the next few years, including projects at La Vielle Plage, Oberlands and the former CI Tyres site, which will add almost 10% to its stock of housing. In addition the GHA and private developer Infinity recently received outline planning permission for a mixed social/private project at the Mallard site in the Forest.
‘With constraints on larger sites like the data park and Parc Le Lacheur, we’re progressing projects we can deliver more quickly. We review our business plan regularly, so this is not the end of development,’ said Ms Slade.
‘What we’ve done is articulate and fund our programme for the medium term – a normal part of business planning – which includes working with others to see how we can lift constraints and bring those bigger sites forward in the meantime.’
Deputy Inder said it was clear that committees responsible for housing in the previous States had acted foolishly by spending millions of pounds to buy various large sites in the north of the island which the GHA still had no realistic plans to turn into housing.
He believed the previous committees ‘wanted to build large social housing sites’ and accused them of ‘delivering nothing’ having pursued the wrong approach.
‘It was bonkers. In my world of business, we just wouldn’t have done that,’ he said.
‘If we had £20m. to blow on buying bog lands of the north, we just wouldn’t have done that. We’d have bought somewhere for £2-3m., and spent the rest of it building houses. I simply don’t understand how we ever got to that point.’
In July, the GHA received planning permission for 60 one-bedroom and nine two-bedroom homes at the former CI Tyres site. It bought the site for £1.7m. in 2022.
It aims to start construction early this year and complete the project by the end of 2027.
Ms Slade said designs were still being put together.
‘Cliff stabilisation is currently under way,’ she said.
‘The second stage of the procurement process, which includes full design, is well under way. The design will inform the construction type and programme.’