‘Government got this one wrong’

The debate on Guernsey’s Island Development Plan (IDP) was a massive and complex one. It was made more so by a plethora of amendments which sought to deliver the wishes of individual land owners. To my mind most of these amendments were inappropriate in a debate which should have stayed focused on broader planning policies. They distracted the eye from the bigger picture – but that is no excuse.

The simple fact is that the States unwittingly passed a plan which makes it too easy to develop greenfield sites. These will always be preferred by developers to the brownfield sites which most of the public would prefer to see prioritised. Collectively the States got this one wrong and we are now seeing the consequences.

It’s no good blaming the planners. They are simply impartially implementing a set of policies approved by deputies.

Let me make a few things clear. I don’t think this States are useless, no matter what the chatter may be on social media. Nor am I one of those populist deputies who likes to say, ‘it’s not me, it’s the rest of the States’. In our government, executive power is shared by the whole Assembly and in this instance we all – including me – fouled up. We simply have to clear up that mess.

Of course, I have to be careful. I serve on the States committee responsible for social housing and I do think that Guernsey needs a bigger stock of affordable housing in order to ease the poverty which can be caused by high housing costs. Indeed, it’s needed simply so modestly paid Guernsey people can afford to remain in their native island at all.

My question in a relatively static population is how many new ‘demand units’ we require and whether these can’t be provided mainly within brownfield sites rather than losing ever more open land. I accept that our ageing demographic is changing household sizes and that will obviously drive some demand, but it really doesn’t require a developers’ charter.

I think most deputies accept that the current regime, which they approved, has proven to be too liberal in respect of development on greenfield sites. So I suppose the question is ‘how do we go about correcting that?’ Not only will it take amendments to the IDP but possibly also to the Strategic Land Use Plan (SLUP) which lies behind it.

Of course, any seven deputies could bring these issues forward for debate by requete, but I doubt that is actually the best way to do it. The remedies are likely to be quite complex and, as a result, any attempt to identify the correct solutions by those without access to regular expert advice will be imperfect at best. If it has to be done that way then so be it, but really the States should be looking to the Development & Planning Authority and saying, ‘you led us into this mess so can you now please lead us out again?’

Of course what we don’t know is whether the members of the DPA share what appears to be the majority view in the States that their new regime has gone too far and become too developer-friendly. Nor do we even know whether the rest of the deputies see the problem through exactly the same lens.

For some it is a north/south divide. I can’t accept that. The new IDP does heavily favour development within existing urbanised areas of the island. That is nothing new. In a way what that creates is an east/west split which impacts on both St Peter Port and St Martin’s just as much as it does on St Sampson’s and the Vale.

Many believe that this is somehow unfair, but the question then becomes ‘what is the alternative?’ It can’t be a good idea to spread development evenly across the island, like butter across a slice of toast, with no distinction between town and country.

I don’t think it is this aspect of the plan which is at fault. Rather, I think there are two specific issues which need to be addressed.

The first is how can we ensure the development of brownfield sites takes priority when they are inherently more costly to develop than the low hanging fruit of greenfields? The second is how do we have a system which treats every applicant fairly without the risk of granting far more permissions than the island actually needs?

The two questions are not unrelated. Traditionally, the solution to an oversupply of planning permissions is to say, ‘what does it really matter because the number of units to actually be developed may be far fewer and will only be sufficient to meet market needs. No one is going to build homes which they don’t think they can sell’.

That may be true but we can be sure that those permissions which are eventually translated into new builds will be on the most cost-effective sites. These are likely to be greenfield rather than brownfield sites. So a surplus of permissions may not lead to an oversupply of accommodation, but it will lead to that accommodation going in the wrong places. Or rather the right places from the developers’ point of view, but not the community’s.

So where does this leave us? I think it leaves many members of the States looking to the DPA for a path out of this dilemma. Deputy Gollop has long called for a leadership position. Now he has one and I look forward to him and his political team telling us the best way to resolve the widespread concerns which undoubtedly exist within the Assembly on this issue.