Building social housing 'enormously frustrating'

The president of Employment and Social Security has described the process of building more social housing in Guernsey as an "enormously frustrating process".

Deputy Peter Roffey's comments came while the island's social housing waiting list stands at 260 people.

He told BBC Radio Guernsey his department had been focused on adding more affordable homes to the island but said it was difficult.

Roffey said the problem dominated his waking hours and added the people on the waiting list knew "in many cases it is going to be a long time before we can help them".

The deputy added: "It has been enormously frustrating process trying to get from wanting to build new houses to actually having acceptable sites with planning permission, to get the finance in place and being ready to putting spades in the ground."

He said the "most frustrating" example had been Parc Le Lacheur which had seen development stalled over a flood mitigation issue.

Addressing the island's waiting list for social housing, he said: "The list isn't growing, which in a way is quite surprising but it is far too high and has remained pretty much constant for the last couple of years."

Roffey said unless those on the list had "urgent requirements" they tended to stay on the list for a "long time", which he described as "not ideal".

President of Environment and Infrastructure, deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez, said the construction of both affordable homes and homes in the private sector had been delayed by the cost and affordability of building materials.

She said this had been compounded by the pandemic, the Ukraine war and other economic factors.

"We've also got real pressures on the cost of labour, that's another thing developers tell us is a huge pressure at the moment," she added.

"And the availability of labour as well and the availability of finance."

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