This article first appeared in the Guernsey Press Home and
Home supplement.
Coming just weeks after a fiercely contested Island Development
Plan debate that saw lobbying on all sides, a whopping 23
amendments and some elements scrape through with the barest
majorities in the States, it might sound strange to say that
there's a major Planning issue on which almost everyone in the
island would agree.
It might sound strange, but it would be the truth – almost
everyone in Guernsey would agree that we need to do something about
affordable housing and infrastructure investment. After a long
period of gentle decline, the most recent house price figures
showed an increase – but more importantly, the bottom rungs
of the housing ladder are still out of reach of a wide section of
the community. That, and the need for capital infrastructure
investment, are the two themes that most of us would agree on.
