Call to States for housebuilding timeline

A lack of capacity in Guernsey's construction industry has been blamed by some politicians for the slow progress of housebuilding locally

The body which represents Guernsey's construction industry has criticised the States for not providing it with a timeline for big housing projects.

Chair of the Construction Industry Forum John Bampkin said he has "had nothing that's given him confidence that a pipeline will be forthcoming".

He welcomed the idea of creating a housing forum and a new committee for housing.

Environment and Infrastructure (E&I) President Lindsay de Sausmarez said the biggest issue holding back local housebuilding was the "skyrocketing" cost of materials.

Mr Bampkin said: "We've talked for the last three to four years about knowing a bit further ahead about when sites would be available and we can gear up for that, but we're still not in that position now and we've been hearing this for far too long."

Guernsey's construction industry forum said it needed certainty to ensure it had the right staff to deliver projects

Last year Guernsey's States agreed the island needed to build about 300 new homes a year to meet the needs of the population.

Since the target was agreed figures from the States showed 145 new homes were built, 51 homes were removed from the market, giving a net increase of 94 units to the island’s housing market - 30% of the current target.

On the subject of whether the local construction industry could meet the targets set by the States, Mr Bampkin said: "We could build 175 houses per year at the moment and could expand that over the next two years to build the 338 per year that's required.

"The big thing we need is the certainty over where these houses can be built and we can work out who can build them."

Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez said there was work under way within the States to mitigate the current housing crisis

E&I has overseen the Guernsey housing plan and the committee's President Lindsay de Sausmarez blamed some of the lack of progress on housebuilding on "macroeconomic factors" across the world.

"Brexit, Covid and the invasion of Ukraine have had a significant effect on the construction sector generally.

"The key factors we've heard from the sector is the cost of materials have skyrocketed, the cost of labour is also higher and the availability of labour is lower."

Some deputies have suggested something that would help mitigate the island's housing crisis would be to set up a committee for housing, something Mrs de Sausmarez disagreed with.

She has argued for increased funding for the delivery of the Guernsey housing plan.