Paul Nobes, managing director of construction company Infinity Group, and lead for the Guernsey Construction Forum’s housing sub-committee, was one of a number of industry professionals in attendance at an IDP meeting held at St Peter Port douzaine on Wednesday evening.

They heard Development & Planning Authority president Victoria Oliver and States principal forward planning officer Simone Whyte deliver a presentation on some of the proposed changes in the IDP relevant to St Peter Port, including the removal of Selborne Vinery as a potential site for affordable housing and the inclusion of Regency Vinery in St Martin’s as part of an updated St Peter Port local centre boundary.

An hour-long question and answer session then took place.

Mr Nobes questioned the lack of work the DPA had been able to do to ensure the new sites it had earmarked for affordable housing were fit for purpose and commercially viable to build on.

He said, in order for affordable housing to be delivered on the sites, they needed to have a plot value of between £30,000 and £60,000.

‘Some of the plots have existing properties, greenhouses that need to be taken down, other bits that need clearing away, which requires time and money and affects the value of the land,’ he said.

‘I’m genuinely concerned that, due to the lack of the requirement for viability surveys, the DPA and planning may have wasted the last two years finding sites which won’t be able to have houses built on them for four or five years, or in some cases never. It won’t be viable to do anything with them due to the state they’re in, the cost to deliver housing on them, or the current value of existing property on the sites.’

He added local industry experts had recommended that 20 new sites – 10 to develop on now and 10 in reserve – to be put forward, rather than just eight.

‘Industry is worried,’ he said.

‘We’ve been put in a difficult situation, we will make representations [on the viability concerns] but then no formal decision will be made for a year.’