Guernsey Leale's Yard proposal includes 332 homes

Plans to build 332 houses, a multi-storey car park and a large supermarket have been submitted to planners in Guernsey.

It is the latest proposal in the long-discussed development of Leale's Yard, which covers about 7.5 acres (three hectares).

The project is expected to cost more than £100m and would be the largest single development in the island.

Under the proposals all the homes would be modular housing.

They would be built in a factory in Harrogate and transported to Guernsey to be constructed on site.

The supermarket will be run by the Channel Islands Co-operative, which owns the site.

Charles McHugh, director of development for Leale's Yard, said: "This project will rejuvenate Guernsey's second town."

On the price of the houses he said: "We're not in the luxury houses market, we're in the affordable houses market.

"We will be on a par with the guide prices for the Guernsey Housing Association."

The Guernsey Housing Association is sponsored by the States to offer social rented housing, homes sold as partial ownership for local people on lower incomes whose needs cannot be met in the private housing market and extra care housing where there is a need for additional support.

Its website has a one-bedroom flat with parking priced at £250,000, a two-bedroom house with parking at £370,000 and a three-bedroom with parking at £440,000.

The average purchase price for a Guernsey local market property was £550,893 based on figures from the last three months of 2021.

A modular home consists of sections or modules that are built elsewhere and then assembled on-site.

"By using these techniques it means we can finish this project in a short period," said Jeremy Rihoy, from JW Rihoys.

"Modular is the way the industry is going and it's anything but cheap and tacky. It's high quality and very good."

On whether it will mean less work for local contractors, he said: "There is an awful lot of work to be done on this site for local builders. The Co-op Store, the infrastructure and the car park to name a few.

"There's maybe £60m of work to do which isn't modular.

"At the moment the Guernsey building industry is flat out. If we did this in the traditional way, there wouldn't be the capacity on island to do it."

Mr McHugh said he wanted to dispel any suggestion that modular was poor quality.

"They are very high quality. It's better than what we could achieve in the time we have using traditional methods.

"We think we can have these houses built and in place within the next three years."

Nigel Banks, special projects manager for Ilke Homes, the company based in Harrogate that would build the modular homes, said: "We have focussed on having homes that are very well insulated, they are also built using very sustainable materials - we have a big focus on having low emissions to the structures.

"The floors are manufactured then put on a trailer and transported to a harbour, then put on a charter vessel and then transported at night to the location."

The infrastructure for the site will need to be provided by the States, including new roads and traffic light systems.

Leader of the Guernsey Party Deputy Mark Helyar visited the company's factory in Harrogate and said he had been sceptical about modular housing but he had been "convinced about the quality of these units".

"We need to have affordable housing. That isn't social housing.

"This new technique of building houses could be extended out to housing for key-workers like staff at the hospital - it provides a real opportunity."

Analysis from Guernsey political reporter John Fernandez

Twenty-five years of false dawns.

Leale's Yard is the site hailed as having the potential to regenerate The Bridge - but again and again proposals to revitalise the area have fallen by the wayside.

Why? Well for one the Channel Island's Co-op is the first to admit, it's not a developer and isn't in the business of vast building projects.

Which is why this time around, they've brought in a development partner to try to get the process moving.

The result? A project which will do something never seen in Guernsey. Large scale modular housing, built in Yorkshire, shipped to Guernsey and put up on site - which the team behind the plans say will be quicker, reduce costs and mean a superior product.

What it will achieve if it gets planning approval is environmentally efficient homes, at a lower overhead than local builders could achieve.

The big question will be, will the promise of affordability come to pass in three years' time when this housing project is expected to be completed? Or will the arguably unsustainable property prices see this development move into a different affordability category?

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