THERE is no single figure guiding decisions about housing delivery, a minister has said as he branded a previous projection that 7,000 homes would be needed by 2030 “a work of fiction” due to a slowdown in population growth.
Housing Minister Sam Mézec said his focus is on expanding affordable housing and that any headline figure would be based on new demographic data due to be published next month.
An independent report in 2019 estimated Jersey would need about 7,000 new homes by 2030 if the population continued to grow by around 1,000 people a year – but more recent figures show growth has slowed and birth rates are declining.
Between 2022 and 2023, the population rose by 350, while between 2019 and 2021, more people left the Island than arrived, with most leavers being long-term residents.
“Since 2019, the world has totally changed,” Deputy Mézec said. “Those projections are just a work of fiction now.
“We can’t really have a number to be working towards a headline right right now, because we don’t know if [the slowdown in population growth] is a blip or a trend.
“What we do know is there is still a need for more affordable housing, and so that’s our priority, to just deliver as much of it as possible.”
Deputy Mézec said social housing provider Andium Homes currently had around 900 homes under construction – a mix of flats and houses – with planning permission secured for further schemes and £100 million in funding in place.
“If we’ve got too much social housing, I’ll just raise the income limits… make it accessible to more people.”
Recent figures show house prices fell by 8% between 2023 and 2024 – the largest drop since at least 1986 – with the average home price falling from £636,000 to £589,000.
Deputy Mézec described the decline as a “moment of correction” that could help first-time buyers and give younger Islanders a better chance of getting on the housing ladder.
But when asked whether Jersey remains in a housing crisis, Deputy Mézec said: “We definitely still are.”
The minister also said that work was under way to encourage “right-sizing” for older Islanders, with down-sizer homes being planned in parishes as well as in town.
These efforts form part of the government’s wider Investing in Jersey strategy, a 25-year capital investment plan published earlier this month that promises to deliver thousands of new affordable homes over the next decade.
