What about those green shoots of progress? Or that seemingly essential line: ‘I wasn’t going to speak but...’ 

While these are all classic lines, they all pale in comparison to one particular and acutely pointless phrase. 

Spades in the ground. 

It’s an even more weightless phrase when used in reference to Leales Yard. 

In 2016 I was only just getting my feet as a journalist and had been sent out to cover the most recent update on Leales Yard. I was tasked with voxpopping the Bridge businesses, to find out what they made of plans to regenerate Leales Yard following an announcement from the Coop that 400 homes could be built on the long-forgotten patch of nothingness behind the Bridge. 

I was met with scoffs, eye rolls and cynicism. “We’ve heard it all before,” they told me. And they had.  

Plans were first discussed for Leales Yard in 2008 and there have been several false dawns since. 2016 seemed to be one such dawn. 

Cut to November 2022, and the Leales engine started revving up again. The Development & Planning Authority granted outline planning permission for the project to develop more than 320 homes on the site, a supermarket and retail store, a car park, and green and civic space. 

Writing in 2022's annual report, Chief Executive Officer for the Coop Mark Cox said that they had worked tirelessly with their development partners to progress plans for the site. 

“I am sure islanders in Guernsey will join me in feeling both excited and eager to see work begin on the Leale’s Yard site, which is due to commence in 2023,” he said. 

Gates have now been installed, and boards erected, but has a spade ‘got in the ground’? 

I’m not quite so sure. Happy to be corrected though... 

When Deputy Lyndon Trott stepped into his second tenure as Chief Minister he told me that those spades would get in that ground by the “end of this term”. 

In fact, in March this year a spokesperson for P&R told Express that a Policy Letter on Leales Yard is incoming and ’the Policy & Resources Committee continues to work with all parties to a timeframe of Q2'. 

But don’t get too excited. 

During a subsequent P&R update provided by Deputy Trott he gave a somewhat diluted and less specific comment of: “The Committee is looking to bring proposals to the States as soon as possible regarding Leale’s Yard." 

When is a soon as possible? Well it’s certainly not going to be Q2 of 2024 

In fact, it seems like it might not even be this year. In the latest update from P&R the Committee said it “hopes to be able to conclude its work by the end of the year, noting this is reliant on a number of parties and factors outside its control”. 

This ‘delay’ is seemingly down to a technical discussion about apartment blocks at Leales Yard and the use of modular construction ‘not previously used in the Channel Islands’. 

The Committee said it’s frustrated with the challenges the States of Guernsey face when trying to push through projects at pace.  

P&R is right, it is frustrating, and it’s starting to feel like the States are being forced to do anything other than get a ‘spade in the ground’. 

We had the Housing Action Group which disappeared in a puff of smoke only to be replaced by the Housing Action Group II. The Guernsey Housing Plan, the draft changes to the IDP, and now a possible new committee whose entire mandate is housing.  

We can shout about housing as much as possible, but without a spade in the ground it really doesn’t matter. 

A bit like grinding water or pounding sand.