Backbencher fears lack of government scrutiny bbc.in/3WsSSC7

The Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Scrutiny Panel has today held a public hearing with the Minister for Housing, Deputy Malcolm Ferey. Following the Hearing, the Panel is concerned that the Minister isn’t yet up to speed with the Housing remit four months into the role and after the publication of the Common Strategic Policy which includes providing more homes as a key priority. He said he hasn’t yet had a chance to consider certain policy issues and while saying he wanted to create more future-proofed housing, when asked why sites zoned for housing aren’t being developed, he cited planning problems; before agreeing with his Officer that there is a wider economic issue of land pricing and build costs. There also appears to be a contradiction in what the Statistics Jersey data shows, i.e. that the shortage of properties we have in Jersey is just 310 units which in a net nil migration scenario means we will have a surplus of homes by 2040, and the Minister’s main priority which is to increase housing. The Minister is also responsible for population policy and did not give a clear reason behind that disconnect between data and policy. The Panel is also concerned that the Minister said he only had a brief conversation with the Planning and Regulation Minister about the recently launched consultation into proposed minimum size standards for housing, and that his input was not based on data from Islanders but his own experiences. There is also a wider concern that the Minister hasn’t yet held structured meetings with the Planning and Regulation Minister and Infrastructure Minister while developing his housing policy and priorities. The Panel learned that there has been a slight increase in the numbers of islanders who are homeless, but the Minister has yet to meet with the Homelessness Cluster in order to discuss how to tackle this. The Minister also doesn’t feel the need for a Ministerial group, across departments, to tackle the wider causal issues resulting in homelessness. This raises further concerns about silo working within the Government. The Panel would also like to highlight that the Ministers’ answers to questions about communications and consultations have heavily focused on landlords and agents; and appears to be missing out on tenant stakeholders through its approach and focus. The Panel is glad to hear the Minister would like to collect rental data and acknowledges this will need a Ministerial Order to take effect. The Panel hopes that this will be forthcoming shortly. Watch the Hearing: On our website: bit.ly/4dPYnAS Or on YouTube: bit.ly/4i9Mk2q @hilaryjeune @AlexCurtisJsy @AMCopywriter

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