Property stock bulletin has much to report

Its authors say it provides a snapshot of Guernsey’s domestic property stock at the end of the year and tracks how this has changed over time.

There is much to explore in its pages, but a few snapshots take the eye.

First, it appears to blow the ‘put it in the north’ soundbite. A third of all residential property in Guernsey can be found in St Peter Port, which has more than double the housing density of any other parish.

Over the past six years, the number of housing units in St Peter Port have grown by nearly 300, to just more than 9,000.

This compares with St Sampson’s increasing by 131 to 3,970, and Vale increasing by 110 to 4,016. Admittedly there has been no increase at all in the country parishes,

On the other side of that argument, however, a diagram of housing units scattered island-wide, with designated centre zones patched on, does reveal how much housing is contained in the northern parishes, and at first glance does appear to justify the arguments over the need for improved parish infrastructure made by the two northern douzaines last summer. It's an argument which does not appear to have gone much further since then.

And did you know that more than six out of 10 local market homes are owner-occupied? While just 10% is affordable housing, with more than a quarter of the market in private rental.

But the political and news focus on new development for the period covered by this report has been relentlessly focused on the affordable sector, to the point that when the prospect of building homes for sale on land near the Castel Hospital was raised, it caused hue and cry.

Overall, the report reveals that housing stock increased by 155 units in 2021.

And the one thing we can be sure of in this multi-faceted sector, is that is just not enough to keep Guernsey moving forward.