Affordable GP11 is on the way out
THE latest self-inflicted wound to the Island Development Plan’s controversial affordable housing policy GP11, is surely another inevitable step towards the ultimate withdrawal of the policy when the IDP is formally reviewed.
Some political opponents have been calling for its withdrawal for years, but that action tends to get delayed when they discover how long it would take.
Some may not agree that GP11 is almost solely responsible for a lack of housebuilding taking place over the past few years, but it’s clear that with major developments now coming through – Briarwood in St Martin’s the latest – that while GP11 may not stop development, neither will it contribute.
And when developers seem keen to extricate themselves and their developments from such policy, backed here by planning officers, and, one can expect, politicians at the Development & Planning Authority’s open planning meeting on the application next week, it seems that the policy has lost much, if not all, of its relevance.
No GP11 would leave affordable housing effectively entirely with the States and the Guernsey Housing Association. Currently they are doing their utmost to fill that gap, though, arguably, those efforts are also contributing to the downfall of GP11.
But it’s hard to argue that the removal of the policy would damage the market when to date it hasn’t enabled the building of a single affordable home.