Vote for me and I will commit my time and energy to doing what I can to improving the housing situation, aiming for more housing availability for a cross section of Guernsey people. My key aim is to deliver real results in tackling our housing problem, as quickly as possible.
Manifesto
Steve Williams
Independent Candidate
07911 760305
Facebook - Steve Williams Deputy Candidate
Vote for me and I will commit my time and energy to doing what I can to improving the housing situation, aiming for more housing availability for a cross section of Guernsey people.
My key aim is to deliver real results in tackling our housing problem, as quickly as possible.
I have proven experience of achieving exactly that, having spent over 40 years in my career getting affordable housing built, just over 23 years in England and latterly 17 years as the Chief Executive of Guernsey Housing Association. During that time GHA built 900 homes in Guernsey for people in need of housing. It is significant that in July 2018 the States voted that new social house building should be reduced to only 35 homes a year as the housing market had slumped, this target was increased in 2022 when the housing need had rocketed.
I retired from GHA two years ago, and I now wish to do what I can as a Deputy to help local people get housed affordably. I will use my 17 years of experience working in partnership with States Committees and civil servants to find solutions. If you elect me, I would like to join the newly formed Housing Committee to do everything within my power to reduce the housing problems islanders are facing.
Why should you vote for me?
In my career of over 40 years I have worked for several Housing Associations and a private developer, all focussed on getting affordable housing built. My experience covers everything from finding the land to completed homes. This includes legal issues, financial appraisals, and client project management of the construction teams to get new homes built on time, to budget, and occupied.
Since retiring from Guernsey Housing Association (a not for profit company, independent of the States) I have worked as a housing consultant and increased my voluntary work. My current voluntary roles include being the Chair of the Guille-Allès Library Trustees, a steward for St James events, and assisting at the Guernsey Literary Festival each year.
I can bring valuable skills, knowledge and experience to the role of a Deputy. I am keen to improve the quality of life for Guernsey people, keen to improve the island’s finances, and keen to provide more homes. I am courteous, a team player, accustomed to working cooperatively, finding solutions and compromises.
As housing is both one of the most important issues facing Guernsey, and an area where I can offer expertise and experience, I have focussed most of my manifesto on this key issue. Over the last 9 months I have met with a small group of housing professionals to produce a set of housing policy ideas that could reduce the housing problem by getting more homes built faster and encourage young people to stay and save for a deposit with tax incentives. Some of these policies are summarised below.
Why do we need more housing? We need more private sale and affordable housing in the island to accommodate our young people and encourage them to stay, to house our young families and key workers. We need more houses in Guernsey because we’re all living longer, because we are less likely to live in multi-generational houses and because all households want a place of their own. We need to import essential workers, whose skills we depend on for our health service and other key jobs, and vitally we need to be able to accommodate local people who are struggling to find housing that is affordable and suits their needs.
What we need now are solutions, which are undoubtedly the difficult issue. Crucially we need more homes, of the right type, cost and quality, for people to buy and to rent.
New Homes - as well as progressing the housing policy ideas listed below, if elected I intend to examine all the large housing projects that have been approved but not yet been built to find out why, talk to the developers about what is holding them up, and what if anything the States could do to move them along faster. One example is Leales Yard which would make a huge difference to the provision of new homes as well as a major rejuvenation of The Bridge area. The finances obviously need close scrutiny to ensure everyone is getting a fair deal, but this project is advanced and could start delivering new homes within this next States term.
Economy – we need a strong thriving economy and as the wide-ranging finance sector is our financial lifeblood we need to look carefully at allowing the sector to diversify without over regulation.
States finances – the States Assembly faces some difficult decisions in this next term as government annual spending exceeds its income which cannot go on. I am not in favour of GST however the States must increase its income, which could be achieved through a raft of measures alongside spending efficiencies. A start could be to go back through the many previous consultants reports of potential savings and taking action.
Education – I am endeavouring to remain positive throughout this manifesto however the last few years of the secondary education changes have not been ideal and have left many parents, students and employers wondering what is going on. Action needs to be taken to ensure that the Education Dept is delivering the best education possible for our young people.
Health – this a constantly growing sector as people live longer and require support for longer. Health needs constant evaluation on what we can and cannot do as a small island and whether we can work more cost effectively with our neighbours.
Connectivity – reliability and cost of the current air connectivity is not working and action needs to be taken to improve the current situation. This should include growing the market to include other airlines and realistic appraisal of the options to extend the airport runway.
Impact of climate change – we need a plan of action on our sea flood defences and water catchment. I would be keen to encourage greater energy independence, including potential wind power and tidal power as well as incentivising solar panels on roofs across the island rather than paying for another cable to France (which increases our dependence on other countries).
My Housing policies
Assisting first time buyers by:
- Using planning policy to increase the number of homes in a project’s developable area, for example, to allow building up rather than out, where appropriate.
- Scrapping document duty for developers and purchasers for new developments sold for less than £600k to first time buyers.
- Lowering the rate of income tax charged to 10% on the profits made by developers building and selling new units for less than £600k properties, to incentivize their construction.
- The Island Development Plan (IDP) currently being reviewed could designate new affordable housing land at a discounted land cost, enabling builders to sell to first time buyers at a 25% to 30% reduced price, with the discount tied in legally forever, so future buyers also benefit. I have already put this forward as a written proposal in the ongoing IDP Review.
Increasing the quality and number of homes in the rental market by:
- Encouraging and supporting landlords to invest in improving their rental properties by allowing a tax deduction for the cost of repairs and improvements.
- Lowering the rate of income tax charged to 10% on build to let rental income for five years.
- Abolishing the 2% Document Duty for second homes.
Building more homes by:
- Ensuring that the IDP allocates sites at a rate of twice the number of units identified as needed during the planning period, increasing the chances that some will get developed.
- Introducing a penalty for not developing sites available for occupation within 3 years by reducing the developable area available on the site by 20% every 3 years. These sites would then become green open space, compensating for development elsewhere and incentivising developers to speed up development.
- Encouraging developers to come forward with mixed tenure developments, with a bias towards social and affordable housing whilst maintaining the ability to deliver a profitable scheme, through the inclusion of private market dwellings.
- Increasing available sites by reclassifying redundant greenhouse sites in or adjacent to the IDP Main Centres and Local Centres as ‘brownfield land’, enabling the sites future use for residential housing schemes of any viable tenure.
- Building new housing behind historic building frontages to create more new modern homes in St Peter Port.
- Be willing to explore a variety of partnerships for joint ventures to design, build and manage more social housing
- Trialing for 24 months lower tip-fees for brownfield developments to see if this encourages bringing back into use contaminated land at lower cost rather than easier-to-build on greenfield sites.
Building more homes by:
- Ensuring that the IDP allocates sites at a rate of twice the number of units identified as needed during the planning period, increasing the chances that some will get developed.
- Introducing a penalty for not developing sites available for occupation within 3 years by reducing the developable area available on the site by 20% every 3 years. These sites would then become green open space, compensating for development elsewhere and incentivising developers to speed up development.
- Encouraging developers to come forward with mixed tenure developments, with a bias towards social and affordable housing whilst maintaining the ability to deliver a profitable scheme, through the inclusion of private market dwellings.
- Increasing available sites by reclassifying redundant greenhouse sites in or adjacent to the IDP Main Centres and Local Centres as ‘brownfield land’, enabling the sites future use for residential housing schemes of any viable tenure.
- Building new housing behind historic building frontages to create more new modern homes in St Peter Port.
- Be willing to explore a variety of partnerships for joint ventures to design, build and manage more social housing
- Trialing for 24 months lower tip-fees for brownfield developments to see if this encourages bringing back into use contaminated land at lower cost rather than easier-to-build on greenfield sites.
Improving delivery by the Development & Planning Authority (DPA)
- Speed up the larger projects planning applications through careful scrutiny identifying where and why there are delays and assessing whether the planning officers are adequately resourced.
- More readily permitting changes in properties’ Use Classes to help reuse buildings as the island’s requirements change.