Government is 'out of touch' with the challenges Manx residents face when it comes to housing, according to one MHK.
It's after the infrastructure minister said it's 'impossible' to calculate a market value for affordable housing .
Douglas South member Claire Christian says quoting prescriptive selling prices without considering market conditions creates 'more confusion than clarity'.
She told Amy Griffiths she wants government to take the housing crisis more seriously:
Hi there. I'm Amy Griffiths, and I'm one of the journalists in Manx Radio's Newsroom, and you're listening to Newscast. Claire Christian, MhK. I basically asked the infrastructure minister for a definition of what affordable housing is. The reason why that's really important is we are being given a lot of statistics from the government, from the chief minister about how many affordable houses are being built, etc. So it's really important that we understand what that definition is. And we're satisfied with the response that you got. The government's response was that there was no way to define affordable houses for them. They sort of said it was difficult to do that. They said that the 2016 strategic plan does give a sort of an idea, but it fails to provide a clear measurable value for what affordable truly means for today's housing market. So they quoted sort of prescriptive selling prices, but that for me is very outdated. So it's not considering market conditions. So what was true two years ago as a market rate probably no longer holds the same as it does today. So for me it shows a disconnect that demonstrates really how sort of out of touch the government is with what challenges Manx residents face in today's housing market. For example, rising cost of living, high inflation, limited housing stock, stagnant personal allowances, all these factors are very different to what it was maybe five years ago, or perhaps it was very different to how it was in 2016 when the strategic plan came out. And we quite regularly see a lot of housing developers getting a lot of stick really for not providing more affordable housing. But is that actually more challenging for them when they don't really have a proper definition of what the government understands affordable housing to be? I would assume that that would be difficult for any developer to understand if there is no definition. And as I said, they're just using a sort of prescriptive definition, which is just a price. But it's not really looking at what somebody can actually afford, or whether somebody can actually save money for the dam payments for, you know, a mortgage for a deposit. It's not taking into any of factors of those, those realities that banks residents face. And when we're looking at the prices that were provided within the answer, so 150,000 pounds for a two bed apartment, 175,000 for a two bed house, and 185,000 for a three bed house, realistically, on the Isle of Man at the moment, how many properties actually fall within those price brackets? I mean, I don't have the actual figures of how many there are on the island of those prices, but certainly from my own impressions that I've seen out there that are on the market, it doesn't seem to be very many. And as I said, it's difficult for people to actually get onto the housing market if there aren't affordable houses. But how do we know what's affordable for banks residents if the government don't acknowledge what that actually is? So what would you like to see government do now? I think what we need to do is crucial that we push for updated policies and transparent definitions, so that reflect the economic realities that are here on the Isle of Man. It's as simple as that, but it doesn't seem to be a priority. But I see it as a main priority because the housing crisis is a really crucial point for any politicians. So I think these things need to be addressed, and they need to be addressed in this administration. Back in 2021, when the election was going on, almost every single candidate listed housing as being one of their top priorities, because that's what the people on the doorstep were saying to them that housing needs to be addressed. Do you think the current administration has taken those concerns seriously enough and made them enough of a priority? Well, I agree with you that it definitely was the top priority. The actions that they immediately took in the sense that they created a housing and communities boards seem extremely positive, and the work that they are doing, there are some really good factors within that. But it does seem to me that certainly when I speak to my constituents, certainly the wider public, within the last three years, there's a feeling that nothing really that's tangible out there that's improved the market. Now, as I said, there are figures that the government produced, they say, or we've built so many affordable houses in the last however many years, but that's why I'm asking this question, what really is that terminology? What is that definition of a affordable house? Because it doesn't seem to be important. This is not the first time I've asked this question. I asked it back in, I think it was within the first year of the administration, and I had a very similar answer then. So it's a shame that this hasn't been addressed in this period of time. The minister says that it's impossible to calculate a market value for affordable housing. So do you think there's any case for moving away from using that term at all? And does anybody actually really understand what it means if even government don't? That's an interesting question. So if government doesn't really understand it, I think they've really got to look at why. If we don't understand what an affordable house is, well then you're not gathering the right information. Surely that information is out there. It's available. We need to look at what factors that are affecting Manx residents. I don't see that as a problem to establish that, and it should be something that should be ongoing. It shouldn't be something that we should rely on a calculation in one year, expect it to be the same in the next, inflation, what with high cost of living for people. It's inflation has gone down, but it's still rising, but just rising at a lower rate. So all these factors, it needs to be updated and it needs to be managed correctly. I believe the government could do it, whether the will is there. Thank you for making it to the end of the Manx Radio Newscast. You are obviously someone with exquisite taste. May I politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this and a wide range of Manx Radio podcasts at your favourite podcast provider, so our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone. Thank you. [Music] [ Silence ]
