'Lull' in affordable housing after no approvals in 2020

The States of Guernsey put up £6.5m to fund the purchase of the Kenilworth Vinery site, an affordable housing project

Affordable housing projects in Guernsey are "having a lull" after no new applications made in 2020 got planning permission, a housing boss says.

In 2020, none of 162 applications granted were for affordable housing.

Steve Williams, CEO of the Guernsey Housing Association (GHA), said getting permission was "really dependent on having land available".

A "long production" process to get land and start building also hindered creating affordable homes, he said.

He said despite completing "23 new homes" in 2020, "we obviously didn't obtain any planning approvals".

He said: "We're having a lull in terms of new homes coming along because it's quite a long production line of getting land, planning permissions and getting them built."

The GHA was "pretty much on target" leading up to the coronavirus pandemic, "but we could see ahead of that that we were running out of land", said Mr Williams.

He said a way forward could be a "speeding up" of the planning process.

However, he said there were "a lot of new affordable homes" coming forward, including applications for 14 new flats and about 130 new properties at Fontaine Vinery.

Planning process streamlining

The States has published its Annual Monitoring Report on the Island Development Plan for 2019 and 2020, which assesses whether Guernsey is hitting housing development targets.

Deputy Victoria Oliver, president of the Development and Planning Authority, said the States had helped the situation by buying a development site at Kenilworth Vinery which would offer affordable housing.

"So there is quite a lot coming up in the pipeline, it's just not ready at the moment," she said.

She added that they had been looking at ways to streamline the planning process, including setting up an extra committee "to try and deal with this".

"We're doing everything we can" but "it doesn't just come the next day", she said.

"It probably takes a year within the pipeline, by the time you sort the land, get the planning and actually then build the properties."

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