Guernsey’s newest principal committee, focused on housing, has said it will definitely commit to tangible targets this year.
Having been set up last year to ensure focus during the ongoing housing crisis, the committee was questioned on what it’s doing and timescales during a Scrutiny hearing yesterday.
The Scrutiny Management Committee put pressure on the definition of the Housing Committee’s purpose, the timescales at play, and quibbled over the right and applicable use of the term “affordable housing”.
Scrutiny’s favourite bone to pick was that of the Housing Committee’s new mandate, tangible targets, and whether or not any plans are deliverable.
Emma Le Tissier, Head of Housing and Infrastructure, commented: “The committee is working towards publishing its work plan by the middle of the year, as directed by the States, and a delivery plan we are working on running alongside.
“I think it would benefit from having an outcome to the IDP review process so we know what sites are available, whether we want to publish something tentative and firm that up after some of those decisions have been made, that might be the case.
“It’s months. It’s not weeks, it’s months, but it’ll be this year, absolutely.”
Although the timescale has been set for a deliverable goal within 2026, Scrutiny was hungry for more details, with question marks over just how many homes are needed in the island.
On the number of dwellings aiming to be delivered, Deputy Andy Sloan, the President of Scrutiny, continued to probe.
“I’m going to push you for a target. What’s your target for this term?” he asked.
To which Deputy Steve Williams, the President of the Housing Committee, replied: “We haven’t set down a specific target number. We are working things up. We’re progressing on a number of fronts, as we’ve already explained, and we are pushing as hard as we can on those.
“I think in terms of our delivery plan, we will come concrete with some numbers for you later this year.”
The Housing committee was poised to push back on giving any kind of figure though, with Vice-President, Deputy Shasha Kazantseva-Miller stating: “I think it’s not a measure of success to make up numbers. We are quite serious about coming up with a serious delivery plan that’s actually achievable.
She continued: “We are committed to doing that, and we absolutely understand its importance.
“What we’re not ready to do, which I think we’ve reiterated, is we’re not ready to come up with numbers out of the air, because it doesn’t help anyone.”
The Housing Committee is facing one of the largest challenges of the political current term.
Not only does it have the monumental task of fixing Guernsey’s Housing Crisis, with people experiencing homelessness, and skyrocketing rental prices, but it’s doing that against a backdrop of construction companies still struggling with the ramifications of the covid pandemic.
“We’re a small island. We struggle with economies of scale. Transporting everything in is expensive,” said Deputy Williams.
“Costs have gone up post the pandemic, dramatically throughout the building industry, obviously levelling off largely, but they rocketed and haven’t come down.”
Later when pushed for further commitment to a timescale for tangible targets, the President added: “You’ve requested this scrutiny hearing with us now, it wouldn’t have been our choice to have had it now, because there’s more work for us to do on the delivery side.
“We just don’t have that information. If you just said, ‘Okay, come to us when you’ve got the delivery plan ready’, this meeting would have been a few months further on.
“We just don’t have that information for you now, and otherwise we’re just plucking figures out which will become meaningless.”