Press Release - Housing Needs Survey 30.06.2021

Housing Needs Survey planned

A new survey is planned to identify the most urgent housing needs for those finding it difficult to buy on Alderney's market, the problems facing young families and the elderly, and the requirements of essential and key workers already living on the island as well as those looking to relocate here.

Connected to these pressures on housing are the needs of an ageing demographic which impacts on the requirements of social care and those key concepts of the appropriateness of the housing stock on the island to the changing needs of its community.

The Housing Needs Survey, spearheaded by four States of Alderney Members, will help to inform the development of a new Housing Policy.

Last week the Island's Policy and Finance Committee (P&F) deferred an agenda item on the proposed sale of some States buildings and focused instead on gaining first-hand data through a Housing Needs Survey as a priority.

This review will be the responsibility of Kevin Gentle, Chair of the Building and Development Control Committee; Annie Burgess, Chair of the Economic Development Committee; Boyd Kelly, Chair of the General Services Committee; and Rhys Jenkins, the island's youngest elected Member who is working on ways to help young people to buy their first home on the Island.

The Group will engage with a range of stakeholders including both the Guernsey Housing Association and the Alderney Housing Association, the latter having an obligation to provide options to enable those who are unable to enter the Island's private housing market to have a home.

In 2018, a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment of people over 50 in the Bailiwick identified a lack of affordable rental property in Alderney which is another consideration in what is a highly complex problem when also taking the current mini-boom in house sales into account.