During what became a very contentious debate on March 6th on a Supplementary Policy Letter (and accompanying Ordinance) regarding the introduction of a long-awaited review of Housing Standards Legislation – the Assembly ended up debating the state of our housing crisis yet again. Whilst the thrust of the Policy was targeted at improving issues surrounding Landlord/tenant relationships – and any need to improve the standards of related accommodation – the deplorable shortage of rented accommodation more generally was raised.
Such was the concern over the proposals contained in the circa 300 page legislation, which had not been previously explained or presented to Deputies informally, that a Parliamentary motion called a Sursis Motivé was brought at short notice, in an attempt to permit Deputies to have more time to consider what were (and now are) very far-reaching proposals that extend well beyond targeting Landlords who need to upgrade accommodation for tenants. In the event, it completely split the voting in half on the Sursis 19-19 and that meant that it actually failed. However, most of the discussion ensued over the Sursis and much less subsequently over the actual Policy letter afterwards.
Whilst concern was raised about the potential for unintended consequences (such as some Landlords deciding to simply exit the market, with the loss of very scarce rental property), the particular reason that the Assembly was so exercised, was the apparent overreach of Government into private property (including rights of entry), being introduced which seemed not only ‘Orwellian’ in practice, but conferred a control which is normally only the province of Customs in the lawful pursuit of Criminal activity.
- The actual policy letter can be viewed here.
- The full voting can be found here
- The Deputies who consistently voted NOT to permit Government such powers to invade Private Dwellings can be seen here (and I am one of them):
Despite losing the vote, it seemed to me that we had two opportunities that the new Housing Committee could access in the new term. The first is something which we are already looking to introduce, which is around the Keyworker village utilising modular homes (so-called ‘podular’ homes). These come in a whole range of prebuilt sizes and uses – and only need access to normal utilities. If we have a site that could be allocated that fulfils this, then we could anticipate extending the use of this method of producing interim homes for all manner of people (not just key workers).
That of course leads me on to the second option – how to pay for it? Well, the Assembly approved the use of £150m of borrowing to service Housing in the last Funding & Investment Plan. Given that there would be rental income coming from these properties – then it could be conceivable that we could allocate some of that sooner than later and pursue this as an interim solution until we finally get some level of homebuilding underway. These are not just ‘portacabins’ they are far more than what one might use for temporary building site workers. Worth investigating in my opinion.
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