There is no such thing as affordable housing in Jersey, Channel Islands.

To The Jersey, Channel Islands Planning Department, all Jersey States Members, and whoever else it may concern:
From: Linda Corby

There is no such thing as affordable housing in Jersey, Channel Islands.
There is a huge crisis of unaffordable housing in Jersey Channel Islands not only in the number of homes available to senior citizens, those with young families and working people, but also in where their homes are located.

The shortage of affordable housing crisis in Jersey is having a major impact and will have devastating consequences for families, businesses and the larger community. But the lower income and minority families are suffering disproportionately.

The Jersey planning department are not meeting the needs of all sectors of the workforce, and the shortage of affordable housing or should I say the non existence of affordable housing is forcing Jersey born and long standing residence of the island to leave in order to survive, and have a decent standard of living.

If the Planning Department do not take action to increase the supply and equitable distribution of affordable housing Jersey will eventually turn into a Hong Kong look alike, because building untold high rise rabbit hutch sized flats in town (St Helier), which have in the opinion of most blatantly been built for an influx of financial sector workers, and for the wealthy to buy and rent out at exorbitant rents simply isn’t what Jersey residence want or need.

These revolting pigeon- hole flats will obviously only turn into ghettos in the future, they are just not suitable for anyone to bring a family up in.

Don’t tell me that the Planning Department don’t know what everyone in the island knows, how they are keeping up the over inflated housing prices by their course of action. Bringing in over 500 extra people into the island a year to buy or rent what the local people cannot afford, which in turn is driving local people out of the island in a mass exodus.

What is needed is affordable housing for low-income families, proper family homes, with gardens and parking, and not all in St Helier which already has more than its fair share of ghettos and prospective ghettos springing up to blot its landscape.
For too many years it appears that planning in Jersey has been allowed to be done by personality, who you are, who you know, and what you have to offer have all played a role in what has been built in the island (Money has talked.). Big Building Construction companies have been allowed to build near enough wherever they like, and basically whatever they like.

The island plan has counted for nothing when it comes to them, you only have to look at the building on Goose Green, a conservation and flood plain area that should never have been built on is now a place full of overpriced shoe box properties, supposedly for our senior citizens, and as a woman fast approaching this age group I can tell you that I think they are horrible, unaffordable and completely unsuitable for what my personal needs would be, and I am not alone in this opinion.

The attitude toward the lower income and minority families in the island averse the big Building Companies when it comes to giving planning permission can be seen quite clearly. When you hear the former president of planning publically stating at a meeting in St John’s that you had to allow big building companies to have planning permission or they would pull out of the island. This says it all to me, and I say let the b***ards go!

It made me feel sick when I heard the now President of Housing publically say, when home owners in Bellozane Valley were complaining that they were having difficulty in selling and getting a good price for their homes because of the stench from the Sewage Station and the Incinerator. The President of housing’s answer in his wisdom stated that housing should buy these properties and give the owners a good price for them, and then housing could rent them out to States Tenants. This is a typical example and just shows you the attitude of some of Jersey’s so called elite Ministers towards the lower income and minority families in the island.

It is time for change; in fact it is overdue time for change. We need a Planning Department who do pass things for local Jerseyborn or long standing residence. (Not just for the Big Building Companies and the wealthy. (Profiteers, here only for the good times.)

We need to ignore the not on my doorstep, I am all right Jack people who already own their own homes and do not want anyone else to own one in their area. (They are just the haves that don’t want the have not’s to have anything. (Selfish a**holes.)

We need to build or allow to be built proper family homes, not in town for Jersey people, and don’t dare to tell me I cannot use the term Jerseyman because I find it despicable, you can have a Jersey Cow, you can have a Scottishman, Welshman, Englishman or IrishMan, and my husband is a Jersyman and he has every right to be called a Jerseyman, he was born in the island and has a long bloodline of Jersey men and women in his family history, as well as English bloodlines on his father’s side. I would love to see the reaction if you tried to tell all the other nationalities I have mentioned that they had to call themselves European, believe me they wouldn’t dammed well put up with it.

Now I have had a good old moan I feel much better. You (The Jersey Planning Department) asked what the people of Jersey thought and which direction they want Planning to go in, now you know, in plain English from a Jersey long standing resident (43 years) married to a Jerseyman, with Jersey born children, who does have her finger on the pulse of the Jersey grapevine, and who is not afraid like so many Jersey people are to tell you the truth.

I await your replies comments with interest. Linda Corby