State of the NationGuernsey · Housing
The homes the island builds, and the ones it does not.
Guernsey adds around 106 homes a year against its own estimate that it needs 313. Almost none of the recent additions have been affordable.
Net additions to the stock each year (units created minus units removed). The line is the States’ Strategic Housing Indicator, its own estimate that the island needs about 313 more homes a year. Building has run below that every year.
Homes on the island
27,799
domestic units, end 2025
New builds in 2025
106
net +62 after demolitions
Affordable homes
2,662
9.6% of all homes
Open Market homes
5.8%
1,607 units
Net affordable added, 2023-25
+1
across three years
A two-tier island
Open Market and Local Market
Guernsey runs two housing markets. The Local Market is for people with local housing rights; the Open Market is a separate, effectively fixed pool of properties that anyone may buy or occupy. It is the smaller of the two by far.
Local Market
26,192
94.2% of homes. Up 1,073 since 2016 – effectively all of the island’s growth.
Open Market
1,607
5.8% of homes, and barely moving: just +16 since 2016. More than half sit in St Peter Port.
States of Guernsey, Annual Residential Property Stock Bulletin 2025 (31 December 2025).
Housing
Home ownership & prices
Owner-occupation rate, 2016–2025 - the full span the States' property-stock system covers on a comparable, year-by-year basis (the underlying data exists from 2010, but 2016 is the earliest year tabulated in the current bulletin format) - plus mix-adjusted purchase and rental price trends since 2021, the full window the States' own quarterly bulletin reports against.
61.2% owner-occupied
2025, essentially flat since 2016 (60.1%). 26.3% of units are privately rented, 8.6% Affordable social rented and 1.0% Affordable intermediate (partial ownership).
Home ownership rate
Purchase price, Q2 2021–Q2 2026
Rental price (£/month), Q2 2021–Q2 2026
“Mix-adjusted average” controls for the changing profile of properties bought/let each quarter, so it tracks the market rather than which properties happened to transact — it is not the price of any individual property. Purchase price includes both realty and personalty (fixtures/fittings). Local Market only (excludes Open Market). States of Guernsey Data & Analysis, "Guernsey Quarterly Residential Property Prices Bulletin, Quarter 2 2026" (issued 11 Aug 2026), Tables 2.1.1 and 8.1.1
States of Guernsey Data & Analysis, Guernsey Annual Residential Property Stock Bulletin 2025 (31 Dec 2025, issued 31 Mar 2026), Tables 2.1.1 and 2.7.1–2.7.5 — gov.gg/property. Ownership rate 2021–2025 comes directly from the bulletin’s own tenure-tracking table (2.7.5); 2016–2020 is Bridgehead’s calculation from the same underlying Local and Open Market tenure tables (2.7.2/2.7.3), since the bulletin itself only began tracking ownership trends from 2021.
Construction
How many homes get built
In 2025, 106 homes were newly built; after 56 demolitions and other changes the stock grew by a net 62. Over the past decade the island has added about 106 net homes a year, well short of the roughly 313 its own indicator says it needs.
The Stock Bulletin counts additions to the stock, which is not quite the same as planning completions, but it is the consistent long-run measure. The single biggest year in the last decade was 2018, at 229 net homes; no year has reached the 313-a-year figure the States uses as its benchmark of need. That benchmark splits into about 844 private and 721 affordable homes over five years.
States of Guernsey, Annual Residential Property Stock Bulletin 2025 (31 December 2025); States of Guernsey, Strategic Housing Indicator 2023-2027.
Planning and permissions
Permissions are up. The homes are not following.
The Development & Planning Authority grants permissions; it does not build. On the Planning Service's own monitoring, homes with permission or under construction reached 1,193 at the end of 2025, the most since 2016. Net additions to the stock that year were 62.
1,193
homes with permission or under construction, up from 1,076 when the term began on 1 July 2025. The monitoring test is 536 to 654.
355
homes under construction, up from 325. The ten-year average is 321.
9.0 to 11.0
years of housing supply on the Planning Service’s measure, against the 5 the Strategic Land Use Plan requires.
Homes with permission or under construction, end of each year
Net homes granted full planning permission each year
The Authority permitted 356 net homes in 2025, the most since 2016, when the Island Development Plan took effect and released its allocated sites. Outline permissions are excluded.
Homes permitted against homes added to the stock
Every year since 2019 the Authority has permitted more net homes than were added to the stock. The two are different measures and a permission can take up to three years to be built, so the gap shows direction and not a one-to-one loss. The Planning Service itself says the States “has no control over implementation of planning permissions”; viability and money, not consent, hold up much of the difference, as at Leale’s Yard below.
What became of the homes permitted in the last quarter of 2022
Full permission lasts three years. Of the 247 homes permitted in the fourth quarter of 2022, 100 (40%) are built, 97 were revised and resubmitted, 40 (16%) lapsed unbuilt and 10 are under construction.
The affordable exception, end of 2025
| Stage | Private market | Affordable |
|---|---|---|
| Full permission, work not started | 439 | 0 |
| Outline permission | 330 | 69 |
| Under construction | 271 | 84 |
Affordable homes in the pipeline rose from 84 to 153 when the Mallard complex in Forest won outline permission in December 2025, but that is a permission in principle. No affordable home has full permission and is waiting to start. Net affordable delivery averaged 33 a year from 2015 to 2024; the States’ indicator is 673 over 2024 to 2028, about 135 a year. The affordable-housing requirement on larger developments (Policy GP11) has been 0% since the States resolved it on 25 April 2024, and stays there until 31 May 2029.
The Island Development Plan review
7 of 8 stages done, States vote still to come
Targeted review written into the Government Work Plan for 2023 to 2025
June 2022
Draft Plan Amendments published
June 2024
Revised Draft Plan Amendments published
February 2025
Further representations to the Planning Inspector
2 September to 13 October 2025
Public hearing before the Inspector
13 to 23 January 2026
Inspector’s report published
July 2026
DPA policy letter and propositions published
September 2026
States debate and voteNow
November 2026 (date to be confirmed)
The Government Work Plan allowed 2023 to 2025 for this review; the States will not debate it before November 2026. As The Quarry reported it, the Planning Inspector found a shortfall in land for affordable housing and recommended 6 extra sites. The Authority accepted 2 of them, and rejected 5 of his 16 recommendations overall.
Decision speed: not published
The Authority’s targets are 80% of decisions within eight weeks and 90% within 13. The last figures in the public record were given to the Guernsey Press in February 2024: of 322 decisions, 67% came within eight weeks and 81% within 13, up from 53% and 74.8% a year earlier. The Planning Service stopped publishing the figures in 2020 and said then it would not restart. The president of the Authority pledged to decide applications faster. Nothing published covers this term, so this page cannot say whether that has happened.
Sources: Guernsey Press, "Planning officers failing to meet their targets", 17 February 2024; Bailiwick Express, Deputy Inder wins DPA presidency; States of Guernsey, Island Development Plan monitoring reports.
Planning Service, Island Development Plan Quarterly Monitoring Report, Q4 2025; Planning Service, Island Development Plan Quarterly Monitoring Report, Q2 2025; States of Guernsey, Island Development Plan monitoring reports; States of Guernsey, Island Development Plan focused review; The Quarry, "Inspector recommends pursuing six extra affordable housing sites to address material shortfall, but DPA does not want to go so far", 8 July 2026; The Quarry, "States to vote on significant planning changes including nine new affordable housing sites", 24 September 2026. The latest quarterly report covers the end of 2025; none has yet been published for 2026, so the comparison with term start covers six months. The Authority was led by Deputy Burford to September 2025 and by Deputy Inder from November 2025.
Affordable homes
How many are affordable, and who owns them
Affordable housing in Guernsey means social-rented homes plus intermediate, partial-ownership homes. Together they are about a tenth of the island's stock, and every one of them is on the Local Market.
2,662
affordable homes (2,395 social rented + 267 partial ownership)
3,264
homes (11.7%) owned by the States or an affordable-housing provider
9.6%
of all homes on the island are affordable
States of Guernsey, Annual Residential Property Stock Bulletin 2025 (31 December 2025).
The recent record
Affordable building has stalled
Net additions to the affordable stock have fallen to almost nothing since 2023, even as private-market homes kept being added. The Stock Bulletin records no net increase in affordable homes at all in 2025.
Net change by market, so demolitions and losses are already netted off. Across 2023, 2024 and 2025 the affordable stock grew by a net 1 home in total.
States of Guernsey, Annual Residential Property Stock Bulletin 2025 (31 December 2025).
Who builds them
The Housing Association did the building
A common claim is that the private sector was much better at building affordable homes, and then the States "took them all in-house". The record is more interesting than that, and the second half of it is the wrong way round.
The heavy lifting on new affordable homes has been done not by the States but by the Guernsey Housing Association, an independent not-for-profit set up in 2002. From a standing start it built its 1,000th home by 2021 and now owns more than 1,000 homes – the island’s second-biggest affordable landlord after the States. Over that period the States itself built essentially no new social housing for a generation, while continuing to manage its existing stock of around 1,700 social homes.
So the “private sector was better at it” half has something in it – though the successful builder was an arms-length housing association, not a profit-making developer. The “took them in-house” half is the reverse of what happened. The direction of travel was outward: the States pushed new social housebuilding out to the Association in 2002, and as late as 2021 was exploring transferring even more of its own stock to the Association. The Association has never been absorbed.
The only genuinely “in-house” move is recent and additive, not absorptive. A dedicated Committee for Housing was constituted on 1 July 2025, pulling housing policy and social-housing responsibility into one place, and it has decided the States will build directly again for the first time in a generation – alongside the Association and private developers, not instead of them.
The forward pipeline: about 500 affordable homes by 2030, by who delivers them
- Island Development Plan affordable allocations283
- Private-market advance purchase80-120
- Guernsey Housing Association168
- States-owned land47-71
States Outline Housing Delivery Plan; a potential range of 484–618 homes. Figures are delivery channels, not firm completions.
States of Guernsey, Housing Department (1,700 social housing properties); Guernsey Housing Association, About us (independent not-for-profit, formed 2002); Guernsey Press, "In a housing crisis it should be all hands to the pump" (GHA more than 1,000 homes), 22 June 2026; Guernsey Press, "Housing sets goal of 300 affordable homes" (States to build "for the first time in a generation"), 31 July 2026; States of Guernsey, Committee for Housing; The Quarry, "Housing identifies potential for up to 618 new affordable homes by 2030".
The big site
Leale's Yard: what is the hold-up?
Leale's Yard is 13 acres of derelict land at the Bridge in St Sampson, owned by the Co-op since 1998 and long earmarked for hundreds of homes. Nearly three decades on, none has been built. The hold-up has been money and viability, not planning.
Progress from derelict land to homes
6 of 10 stages cleared – but construction has not started
Site in Co-op ownership
1998
Designated for regeneration (Island Development Plan)
2016
Development framework adopted
2020
Outline planning permission
2022
Funding & delivery model
2019-2025, collapsed
Site taken into public ownership
July 2025
Demolition & site clearanceNow
Sept 2026 - spring 2027
New masterplan & detailed planning
from 2026
Construction
not started
Homes completed
0 to date
Budget 2027
What the 2027 Budget does on housing
Published 6 October 2026. The headline housing measure is the end of mortgage interest relief; targeted first-time-buyer measures are being developed for the 2028 Budget.
Mortgage interest relief ending
The 2026 Budget had paused the withdrawal. The 2027 Budget restarts it: the cap on eligible interest falls from £3,500 to £2,000 in 2027 and £1,000 in 2028, with no relief from 2029. Estimated to raise about £1m in 2027. The Committee for Housing recommended re-starting the phase-out and redirecting the revenue to first-time buyers.
First-time-buyer measures being developed
The Committee for Housing is working on targeted measures for first-time buyers and younger homeowners, with the aim of bringing them forward in the 2028 Budget. No new scheme is in the 2027 Budget itself.
Open Market tax cap rising
The cap for new arrivals who buy a Part A Open Market property rises from £60,000 to £65,000 in 2027, £75,000 in 2028, £85,000 in 2029 and £95,000 in 2030. The minimum document duty rises from £50,000 to £70,000.
The Committee for Housing receives £9.6m under Option A, 2.1% above the authorised 2026 budget, and 3.6% under Option B. Hostelry, retail and warehousing TRP is frozen; domestic TRP rises with inflation.
338 → 314
homes proposed in 2022, downsized to 314 by 2024 – now to be re-planned
£4.5m
paid by the States to buy the majority of the site in July 2025 and unlock it
0
homes built, 28 years after the site was bought for development
What held it up
No viable funding model
ResolvedThe Co-op could not make a scheme pay for itself on its own; a 2019 request for a States subsidy was refused. Resolved when the States bought the site and funded clearance directly.
Collapsed construction method
OutstandingThe 2022 scheme depended on modular, factory-built homes; the manufacturer left the market in early 2025. A build method for the new scheme is not yet fixed.
States and developer could not agree terms
OutstandingThe £35m enabling investment was pulled in April 2025 amid disputes over valuation, disclosure and deliverability. Superseded by public ownership, but a £300k lawsuit from the former developer is unresolved.
A new masterplan and detailed permission are still needed
OutstandingThe 2022 outline permission was for the old, developer-led scheme. The States is drawing a fresh masterplan across Leale’s Yard and neighbouring GHA land, which will need a new detailed application.
Flood defences and enabling infrastructure
OutstandingThe low-lying site needs flood defences, roads and services before homes can be built; the States says it will do this infrastructure first.
How it got here
1998
The Channel Islands Co-operative Society buys the 13-acre former railway and industrial site for just under £4m, and holds it largely derelict. (source)
2016
The site is identified as a Main Centre regeneration area in the Island Development Plan. (source)
June 2020
The Development & Planning Authority adopts the Leale’s Yard Development Framework as supplementary planning guidance. (source)
April 2022
The Co-op submits an outline application for more than 300 homes (reported as 338), a new Co-op store, a multi-storey car park, civic square and flood defences, using modular construction. (source)
November 2022
Outline planning permission is granted, with conditions. (source)
February 2025
The modular manufacturer the scheme relied on effectively withdraws from the market, throwing the construction method into doubt. (source)
April 2025
The States withdraws the roughly £35m of enabling investment it had agreed in principle, after it and the developer could not agree terms. The developer calls it "a golden opportunity missed". (source)
July 2025
The States agrees to buy the majority of the site from the Co-op for £4.5m, taking the project into public ownership to unlock it. (source)
December 2025
Leale’s Yard is named one of five "super priorities" in the Government Work Plan 2026-2029, committing the States to clear the site and put in enabling infrastructure to start housing this political term. (source)
September 2026
Demolition and site clearance begin, contracted to Rok Limited, and are expected to run into spring 2027. A masterplanning team is to be appointed to set the new layout across Leale’s Yard and adjacent GHA land. (source)
Bailiwick Express, "GWP in focus: how a forgotten industrial giant became a States super priority", 18 December 2025; States of Guernsey, Leale’s Yard Regeneration Area Development Framework; Bailiwick Express, "Latest plans out for Leale’s Yard – with 300+ homes and a new Co-op", 7 April 2022; Guernsey Press, "Letters reveal real reasons for collapse of Leale’s Yard plan", 28 April 2025; Bailiwick Express, "This is indeed a golden opportunity missed", 23 April 2025; ITV Channel, "Guernsey States buys most of Leale’s Yard for £4.5 million", 16 July 2025; Guernsey Press, "Leale’s Yard demolition work to start in September", 14 July 2026.