The States of Guernsey has spent £20,685,876 buying up land to build on and a few properties for key worker housing over the past five years.
Out of that money, £3.5m was spent buying just three properties – two for key workers to live in, and one bought as an ‘operational facility’.
The rest of the money – just over £17m – was spent buying up parcels of land, some of which have been built on already while some are still waiting for plans to progress.
The exact figures came to light thanks to questions posed by Deputy Neil Inder.
He specifically asked Policy and Resources for a list of land purchases, since the start of the last political term (October 2020) up till now.
He wanted details published including the site names and size, all costs, who the land/property was purchased from, who now owns the land, and whether any building work has started.
The properties
The three properties that the States has bought over the past five years are Briarwood; on La Grande Rue, St Martin’s, Avanche Fleche; on Fort Road, St Peter Port, and Le Friquet; on Route de la Croix Bailiff, St Andrew.
Briarwood was bought for £1.1m as an ‘operational facility’. The States previously rented this building anyway but decided to buy it to enable the development of the wider site it sits on, which is now being redeveloped with plans approved to build 26 private properties there. The public car park there has recently reopened after some refurbishment works.
Avanche Fleche was bought by the States in August 2023 for £1.5m. It was already being rented for key worker housing so it was bought to enable that to continue. At the time it was reported that ‘surgeons’ were living in the house.
The property previously changed hands for just £1 in 2010.
Le Friquet was bought for £900,000 in January 2023, also for key worker housing but nothing is known publicly about who lives there.
The land
Having spent just over £17m on land for housing developments since 2020, the States – or its private partners or the GHA – have only seen work progress on a few.
This includes £1.275m spent on land at the Oberlands, which is being developed by the GHA in a public/private partnership with the Infinity group. This development is progressing towards completion and will soon offer six private properties and 15 x one bed key worker units to the market.
The States spent £166,500.00 on three parcels of land at Le Hurel in St Martin’s which is now home to 10 partial ownership units and 16 private properties. The States also spent an additional £87,501.00 on land around this new development, known as Le Ménage, to enable access to it.
A further £610,000.00 was spent on land at Sandy Hook, now known as La Vieille
Plage. Work there is ongoing to build 14 specialised housing units, which should be finished later this year.
Undeveloped land
The remaining parcels of land, bought by the States over the past five years, and costing some £15m has yet to be built on.
One of these plots is the former CI Tyres site in La Charroterie, where work is expected to start soon to build 60 x one bed units, and nine x two bed units for the GHA to allocate to tenants. Cliff stabilisation work is underway and planning permission has been given.
Other plots of land, including the Kenilworth and Saltpan vinery sites – now known as Parc Le Lacheur – have had some preliminary clearance work, but that is it so far.
Costing the States a combined £10.5m the land is now in limbo waiting for the results of a States flood defence programme for St Sampson’s, while the GHA also has yet to publish any plans for the area. It could hold more than 500 units in total in the future though.
Land at the Duval Vinery site at La Fontaine – which cost the States nearly £2m – has stalled while the IDP is under review, and the future of three fields in the Castel, costing £160,000, is being considered under the IDP.
Deputy Inder had also wanted to find out who the States had bought the various parcels of land and properties from, but P&R has declined to answer that publicly, “citing fear of land owners not coming forward”.
P&R said: “While land transactions are in the public domain through records held at the Greffe, the Committee has agreed to omit the personal details of the vendors on the basis that, at the time of sale, they would have had a legitimate expectation that this information would not be specifically published. The Committee is concerned that such a precedent may discourage individuals from engaging in future dealings with the States.”