Wednesday 27 September 2023
General Update
Thank you, Sir,
I won't dwell on the Electricity Strategy, as members should be well up to speed with that. Suffice it to say that work on its implementation continues apace, including on the rollout of solar PV, and feasibility work around the second cable, offshore wind, and the establishment of a Renewable Energy Commission. Many of these issues are of mutual interest to our neighbours in Jersey and France, and indeed this was one of the topics discussed at the summit between the Channel Islands and Normandy last Friday.
Since our last update, the Committee for the Environment & Infrastructure has published the Guernsey Housing Plan, which sets out a prioritised list of workstreams and actions that the Committee will lead on and co-ordinate to address the current housing market pressures. It aims to ensure that:
"All people living in Guernsey will have access to a range of good quality housing that is affordable, secure, energy efficient and adequate for their needs."
The Plan was developed following extensive analysis by independent housing market experts - arc4 Limited - to better identify and quantify the problems that exist in the island's housing market, why they have occurred, their impact and their potential solutions.
What is clear from this work is that there is no one 'quick fix' solution. There are issues with private housing market supply, the private rental sector, affordable housing supply, quality and energy efficiency, specific market niches such as key worker housing, homelessness, older people's housing, and a need to improve our data and evidence to help inform policymaking in this important area going forward.
Making real improvements is going to take time and action is needed in a number of areas. Through the Guernsey Housing Plan, we now have a prioritised list of 28 workstreams that set out what we intend to work on and when.
The workstreams set out in the Guernsey Housing Plan span other committees as well, including ESS, P&R, and the DPA. E&I's current areas of focus include a medium- to long-term keyworker housing strategy, General Housing Law ordinances relating to basic living standards, proposals to help strengthen the rights and obligations of both private landlords and tenants, the Open Market Part A Inscriptions Policy, and measures to improve the energy efficiency of Guernsey's existing and future housing stock.
Because the keyworker housing strategy impacts on so many committees, we will shortly be consulting with them. The first crucial step is finding consensus on a definition of what a key worker actually is, which is a harder task than it might at first appear. This then provides the foundation upon which the provision of keyworker housing can be considered, developed and proposed.
When it comes to housing provision, there are two critical infrastructure dependencies: flood risk mitigation and transport.
The Bridge remains the highest priority for enhanced flood risk mitigation, because there are already a lot of people living and working in the low-lying Braye du Valle (an area that was of course tidally flooded twice a day until a couple of centuries ago) and there are several major sites earmarked for vital new housing in the area as well. The Committee has, on the basis of recent updates to our flood risk data, recommended to P&R that new flood defences in the area are progressed. Any new structure might only be necessary to bridge the time (if you'll pardon the pun) until St. Sampson's Harbour is potentially redeveloped, but as even a decision on the future port requirements could take years, and has already been delayed, we are keen that the area is adequately protected from the risk of rising sea levels and more extreme weather events in that interim period.
Transport infrastructure is another important issue in facilitating new housing, so it will be essential to improve connectivity, choice, convenience and safety in the areas around the Bridge that likely be affected by several significant new developments. We all recognise that our road network is already constrained and can't simply scale up to accommodate higher traffic volumes associated with more housing. That's why we need to look at making changes to the infrastructure to make the network more efficient.
As a committee, we're acutely aware that many in the area do not welcome the prospect of large new housing developments - partly because they feel, with some justification, that there's already too much pressure on their road network. However, everyone in this Assembly will be acutely aware of the need to develop more homes to meet the island's housing needs and support the economy, so we need to throw everything we've got at facilitating that housing in a way that ideally improves rather than negatively impacts quality of life for people already living in the area.
Historically, we know that the idea of transport infrastructure change is often unwelcome, but we also know that these changes can bring positive outcomes. Exhibit A in this respect is the Baubigny road and path network. We also know that, whether current residents like it or not, housing will likely be developed in the area around the Bridge, so it is essential that we do what we can to improve the road infrastructure.
With that in mind, we've worked with the GHA on something called the Better Transport Planthat has been shaped by input from residents, the relevant parishes and other key stakeholders to improve transport options for people in this important part of the island, and we'll continue to engage with them as we make incremental improvements to the infrastructure.
Looking at transport more generally, I'm pleased to report a continued upward trend in bus passenger numbers, no doubt helped by the launch a few months ago of the new app. In a shameless plug, I must mention that it features journey planning, live bus tracking, school bus info and plenty more, and Apple and Android versions are both available to download.
Cost pressures on the bus service driven by inflation and factors such as the global driver shortage have meant that we have had to put fares up to offset these very significant increases, but we have made every effort to ensure that fares are still reasonable and as affordable as possible. Because the proposal around concessionary travel was not driven by cost pressures, but rather future capacity, the Committee has agreed not to limit free bus travel for pensioners to after 9.30am on weekdays, but will continue to monitor the capacity on busy morning services.
Improvements to the taxi service are also bearing fruit. The introduction of the taxi hailing app earlier in the summer has given the travelling public greater convenience, and taxi drivers are now providing an average of about 90 journeys a day, or 650 a week, through the app for passengers that they otherwise might not have carried. We are looking to make a few tweaks to the app over the coming weeks and months, including introducing improved postcode look-up.
The app was used to hail nearly a thousand taxi journeys during the Island Games week. Along with initiatives across the full range of transport options including free bus travel, park and strides, additional bike parking and walking route info, plus a huge amount of work from the Traffic & Highways team on road closures and traffic management for sporting fixtures, the taxi service improvements contributed to the success of the event overall.
One of the most surprising bits of feedback I had from visiting teams during the Island Games was about the quality of our road surfaces, which people were very complimentary about! This is testament to our rolling programme of proactive repairs. So far in 2023 we have fully completed 21 out of 33 road resurfacing and major road patching work projects, which represents around £1.84m of works with the vast majority being finished on time and on budget - which really helps at a time of intensifying cost pressures. We've taken every opportunity during these works to upgrade footpaths to ensure they are accessible, installing tactile paving and dropped kerbs where appropriate.
Also on the subject of roads and sport, I'm pleased to report that Deputy Gabriel and I met with representatives of the Guernsey Rally Club earlier this week and had a really constructive conversation around the decision to temporarily pause applications for major events involving multiple road closures so that we can find a more workable way of processing such applications. As the Rally Club fully appreciates, the current process places a huge administrative burden on both them and us, and has the unfortunate effect of diverting officers away from States priorities for extended periods of time. We've agreed with them a way forward where they will contribute ideas and suggestions to the policy review, which we aim to complete in good time to reopen applications ahead of their 2025 season.
Moving onto coastal infrastructure, this is another area where, like our road maintenance, it pays to be proactive. Major repointing works have commenced at Route de Port and the Imperial Slipway haunch, and repointing works to Saline has now had funding approval so should also get underway in good time.
Repointing of the Napoleonic wall at the north end of Fermain has received planning approval so those works will hopefully start this year.
On the south side, planning for the cliff path realignment is progressing well. Members will have noted that the cliff stabilisation works and the wall at the south side of the beach is categorised for rescoping in the GWP capital prioritisation table. It is only right to look again at stabilising the cliff and rebuilding a wall that - notwithstanding its historic military interest - doesn't protect critical infrastructure in the way that our sea walls do, and would cost a lot of taxpayers' money when funds are hard to come by. The Committee has not yet had an opportunity to make a decision about the best approach to that section: the States Property Unit have been looking at various alternative options and will bring them to the Committee shortly.
Another coastal project that we have been working on with the States Property Unit is the Cow's Horn, where I can finally confirm - after a couple of false starts due to a lack of response to earlier more expansive tenders - that we are now in the procurement phase which should lead to the stabilisation of the cliff and ultimately reinstatement of access to Clarence Battery. The tender is live and we are hoping that, if all goes well, work will start on site in December to be ready ahead of the summer.
Work to protect the L'Ancresse anti-tank wall with rock armour is now complete, and there are just some minor concrete repairs to the apron left to do for now. That work should be finished in the next month or so.
Routine maintenance and dive survey work on the Alderney Breakwater is scaling back as usual as we head into the winter, and the fact that there's nothing particularly exciting to report in respect to the Channel Island's longest bit of marine infrastructure is good news in itself.
The Committee continues to progress the work looking at the future strategic use of Les Vardes Quarry and is working closely with representatives from Guernsey Waste and Guernsey Water to ensure the recommendation is based on a comprehensive evidence base. Their support is invaluable and greatly appreciated. I would like to take this opportunity to remind members that a decision on the use of Les Vardes cannot be looked at in isolation: the workstream will consider all of the assets and options available to meet the Island's inert waste disposal and water requirements.
The Committee has requested initial high level engineering design options to understand their feasibility and the potential associated costs. This work is currently underway and will then feed into Strategic Environmental Assessments. The Committee had hoped to submit a policy letter by the end of this year, but there have been some minor delays to the engineering work, so we now expect to bring that to the States in the first quarter of 2024. We are acutely aware that while this work is ongoing there will be a requirement to stockpile inert waste at Longue Hougue once the existing disposal site is full, so the Committee is doing everything in its gift to keep this project moving at speed, and encourage the maximum possible diversion from inert waste disposal (through recycling and reuse, for example) in the meantime.
The work to review the Island's Dairy sector was included within July's GWP Green Paper with a delivery date of 2024. The Funding & Investment Plan for GWP work will be debated next month. In the meantime, the Committee have held discussions with the STSB to ensure that the review of the industry and the considerations around the Dairy itself are joined up. Preparations have started for the development of a policy letter which will set out the findings of the review and recommendations on how to put the sector on a more economically and environmentally sustainable footing into the future. We will bring that policy letter to the States as soon as we can, which we think is likely to be early next year.
The dual lens of economic and environmental sustainability was a core theme of Sustainable Finance Week which Guernsey Finance hosted to great acclaim again last week. It's a timely reminder, as the global community approaches COP28, that economic and environmental benefit can be mutually inclusive, and that there is a critical co-dependency between them. After all, as one keynote speaker at the event pointed out, a full 50% of global GDP - $44trillion - is exposed to nature-related risk. Our status as a leading jurisdiction internationally in green and sustainable finance gives us a competitive advantage in this emerging field, and that is an advantage that we should continue to leverage in a climate - fiscal and actual - that is certainly not short of challenges.
With a busy and varied remit, I haven't attempted to cover every single area of our work in this update, but I look forward to answering any questions members might have on any aspect of the mandate of the Committee for the Environment & Infrastructure.