Good morning Madam,
I’m very pleased to be bringing this update to the Assembly today.
When we came together as the new Committee in July, we knew that we would be mostly assessed by our ability to delivery new homes and increase the rate of homebuilding. This is why we have been refocusing the Committee priorities and resources on delivery.
This Assembly approved the Major Projects Portfolio earlier this year, and as part of that agreed that the next phase of the Affordable Housing Development Programme could progress to the pipeline stage. Officers are already working on bringing together the necessary plans and documentation, in order that we can ask this Assembly to unlock funding for us to get to work. Very importantly we want to ensure that the level of taxpayer funding is minimised and that the housing delivery programme remains affordable and value for money for the taxpayer is maximised.
There is a lot of public interest about larger sites for affordable housing, such as Leale’s Yard and other sites on the Braye du Valle. These large sites have the potential to transform housing on the island, but it will take many years for these to come to fruition and this is currently being led by P&R through the Political Oversight Group. However, the pain is being felt now. Just yesterday I was taking part in a Teams call with young graduates, who were sharing their hopes and their concerns about life in the island after education. They can’t wait for certainty. For these reasons the Committee feels it’s vitally important that we progress a full pipeline of developments which differ in their nature and in how they will be delivered and this will be encapsulated in our Delivery Plan.
One thing that is often overlooked is how many smaller pieces of potentially developable land are in States ownership. I’m not talking about large estates, I’m talking about maybe 4 terraced houses, or a small block of flats here and there. That doesn’t sound exciting or groundbreaking. However, when taken cumulatively dozens of homes can be produced, as new States housing, and that’s just from the sites already identified.These are homes that can be delivered in a way that doesn’t involve making sweeping changes to the landscape, that can be delivered without the States buying more land, that maximise the use of sometimes neglected or underutilised land or properties. We’ve identified quite a few suitable sites and have very recently written to the Policy & Resources Committee about these sites,seeking their support which I hope will be forthcoming.
We will announce more about how we intend to bring these sites forward in due course. But a great advantage of looking at these smaller pieces of land, is that it gives us the chance to work with smaller developers and construction companies. So often the development of affordable housing sites are comparatively large projects, so smaller companies have limited involvement. That’s not to say there’s something wrong with the larger companies, it’s just that we want to ensure we’re engaging with as much of the industry as we can. We hope that this new delivery channel is more accessible to all and as a result, more of the islands construction sector capacity can be put towards housing development.
Another delivery channel will be focused on those sites expected to be proposed for designation as affordable housing under the IDP partial review due later this year. The Committee for Housing has been engaging with the Development & Planning Authority for some time about these sites and the precise mechanisms by which they will be delivered. We are putting in place plans so that we can move swiftly, if and when this assembly approves those plans. As things currently stand there are hoped to be opportunities to bring forward up to 7 sites and over 200 new homes. The majority of these homes must be affordable housing which means social rented, partial ownership, specialised housing or States employee accommodation. Delivering these homes will require funding and the timelines involved are a key motivator for us working to bring proposals to this assembly to unlock funding for affordable housing development as swiftly as we can.
I’ve spoken a few times about different delivery methods and I think that is one of the key things this Committee wants to bring to the table. In order to accelerate the delivery of affordable housing, we cannot be reliant solely on one method. We believe the States needs to take a far more proactive role. To that end we will be looking to strengthen our in-house resource and ensure we can be capable and informed clients to get homes built.By progressing more workstreams in parallel, we believe we can make a serious difference by increasing the rate of development. In the near future we aim to work in partnership with developers through joint ventures or other types of contractual agreements common elsewhere. This is not to say that the role of the Guernsey Housing Association is diminished, their role in development is being supplemented not replaced. They are a very valuable part of the affordable housing picture on the island, and we will continue to engage with them on sites like the former Tyres Yard and the Mallard, the combination of which looks set to deliver 139 new homes. On that subject, you will have all seen that cliff stabilisation work has been completed at the Tyres Yard site. We are in active discussion with the GHA about the commencement of construction there, which I hope is imminent.You will have all seen that a detailed planning application has now been submitted for the Mallard site, adding detail to the outline permission already granted.
So far I’ve just spoken about Affordable Housing of the kind delivered by the States and Housing Associations. But that is of course only one part of the picture, with current pressures being what they are, the Committee also want to maximise the development of the private housing stock. I’m pleased to say we’ve been progressing on this in tandem,and have been actively engaging directly with the developers and landowners of developable sites. We are keen to explore models through which we can deliver Affordable Housing through private market sites too as we cannot simply rely on the new IDP sites for delivery of homes. We believe that bringing mixed-tenure housing on private sites can be a win-win and are actively exploring contracting models for delivery.
According to the last IDP monitoring report there was detailed or outline planning permissions granted for 769 potential homes that were not yet under construction. If I could wave a magic wand and convert all of these into completed homes, a sizeable chunk of our housing issues would be gone over night. However we know that a large number of planning permissions simply never translate into completed homes. Each of these approvals is an opportunity and the Committee for Housing doesn’t want opportunities to be wasted unnecessarily.
By talking to the developers about these sites, we have a clearer picture of the individual and shared challenges faced. Work has already commenced to try to address some of these issues, such as the cost of clearing contaminated soil from brownfield sites. Planning issues and delays have been highlighted with other applications and we have been proactively engaging with Planning to address them. In other cases, we’ve been able to draw developers' attention to the recent changes in Open Market Part A Inscriptions legislation, which may provide the means to make their project viable and create dozens of new local market homes. These quiet steps all help to bring about progress.
It will be very hard to quantify how this work has helped delivery, but I very much hope that over the coming quarters we start to see a healthy upward trend in the number of homes actively under construction, and a consequent uptick in the number of completed new homes in the years that will follow.
A related piece of work we have engaged in is the Housing Site Availability Framework. This report, which was first published in March this year, contains information about the ongoing progress on sites in public and private ownership across the island. It’s intended to be a tool through which the Committee and public at large can see and understand the progress that is being made on housing delivery. I’m pleased to say this work was progressed in collaboration with the Guernsey Building Trades Employers Association.
Madam, another area of focus for us has been Homelessness, indeed we have Deputy Collins designated as our lead in this policy area. We’ve been engaging with a number of charities which are all in their own ways supporting those who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. We recently assumed responsibility from the Committee for Employment & Social Security for grant funding for Action for Children and we’ve met with their representatives to discuss their future plans. At Home in Guernsey have been working in collaboration with our officers to develop policy and strategy. You may have seen that they recently launched a notification form to try to obtain much needed additional information about people experiencing homelessness in the island and what their needs are. Meanwhile we’ve been having ongoing discussion with Caritas about both their active project located at the Vale Douzaine and their future plans, which we very much hope to help in the delivery of.
Work regarding first time buyers is being championed by Deputy Humphreys. We are very keen to look at supply based measures in due course. For instance the creation of covenanted reduced price first time buyer properties. There are examples of such schemes already and we believe that there could well be a role for this kind of housing to play, alongside other intermediate housing like partial ownership. However, that work will take time due to the need to develop new homes first. In the meantime, we were directed during the last budget debate to report back to this assembly on proposals for non-supply based measures. Work is ongoing in this area and has narrowed to look at three options, one which facilitates saving and two that aim to produce targeted reductions in the cost of purchasing or owning a home.
Getting on the property ladder is a stressful thing and not only due to the difficulty of affording that first rung. Since the Committee has been established, we’ve had a steady stream of correspondence from individuals telling us about their frustrations with the house buying process. Unexpected delays, survey woes and last minute breaks in the purchase chain. No-one would suggest that making the biggest financial purchase of your life should be completely stress free, but it seems that the current process is adding to that stress unnecessarily. I’m pleased to say we’ve been engaging with industry about this issue and expect to be having workshops in the coming weeks to try to get to the root of these issues and whether anything can be done to resolve them.
Another area we have been heavily focused on over the past 6 months is the rights and obligations of landlords and tenants. This work, which Deputy Dorrity has led on, was inherited from the former iteration of the Committee for the Environment & Infrastructure. I know Madam, that the President of the Policy & Resources Committee awaits it with baited breath. We are in a late stage of consultation on this work and we are keen to get it right because it is so important. Fundamentally it is about creating a legal framework to govern residential renting. Setting clearer guidance on some very basic practices such as the requirement that a written tenancy agreement be put in place. I very much expect that this will be the next substantive Policy Letter that the Committee submits, to assist both Landlords and Tenants.
So in summary Madam, the number one focus of the Committee is the delivery of new homes. So many of the issues we see, high rents, difficulty finding suitable housing and poor housing conditions are driven by, or at least aggravated by, a lack of supply. It takes time to deliver this, but we are hopeful that we are sowing the seeds for a pipeline of development that will have a long term and lasting effect. I’m truly excited about the prospect of what we can deliver and I hope this assembly is too. Those wanting more information about our plans will not have to wait long. The Committee is on track to publish our Committee Work Plan by the end of the quarter as well as more detailed information about our delivery plans. I know the President of the Scrutiny Management Committee will be pleased to hear, these will contain KPIs and quantifiable targets.
Thank you Madam