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I opened today’s paper to find a number of articles, comments and opinion pieces on housing. There was not one, but two pages dedicated to the Committee for Environment & Infrastructure’s (E&I) housing plan update.
I then saw another news outlet reporting that the President of the Development and Planning Authority (DPA) believes that the States works in silos when it comes to housing.
The President stated that it was, “a load of silos working on different and sometimes the same things going in different directions”. That is a pretty damning assessment of the government’s response to the housing crisis, and it comes from one of the Presidents of a committee responsible for housing. If true, it would certainly help to explain why we have not been able to build the homes that the island so desperately needs. It also illustrates why we urgently need to set up a Housing Forum.
Government could provide more resources (people) to try to find solutions to the housing crisis, but the reality is that it is a complete waste of time if it simply results in more people working in silos. Committees need to work together, and they need to actively engage with key stakeholders. As I have said before, one way to do this is to create a Housing Sector Forum that meets regularly and consists of senior political representatives from the committees responsible for housing, together with senior representatives from the construction sector and the wider business community. Additional representatives could also be brought in to provide further advice / guidance.
A Housing Sector Forum would be tasked with finding ways to resolve the current housing crisis and to help develop the island’s future housing policies. By bringing all the relevant stakeholders together, I believe that it will result in better communication, better consultation, better strategic planning and an opportunity to share ideas / best practices.
As I have said before, a Housing Sector Forum will not result in spades in the ground tomorrow, but it should result in a more joined up approach to solving the current and future housing needs of Guernsey.
