Three years since it was incorporated, Andium Homes’ chief executive Ian Gallichan said the wholly States-owned company is due to start work on 653 new homes this year, with hundreds more for first-time buyers and social housing in the pipeline.
And he said that the organisation was committed to ‘action not talk’ when it comes to helping more Islanders fulfil their dreams of home ownership, with more sites being pursued for development all the time and talks ongoing with lenders about more funding.
‘We really are going to see Andium pursuing first-time buyer homes, we are going to do more,’ he said, adding that Jersey had a ‘forgotten generation’ who had previously not had enough help to get on to the property ladder.
‘Jersey’s housing stock has never been in a better position in terms of its long-term future.
‘We do need to provide more opportunities for people to buy a home, we absolutely do, and we must not just keep talking about it, we must do a lot, lot more.’
Andium, which was recently given £47m by the Treasury Minister to fund the purchase of 200 units being built on the former Samarès Nurseries site – money which came from the £250m borrowed by the States for housing – is due to publish its revised strategic business plan later this month.
It also has a long-term 30-year plan in place.
‘We now know what we are going to do in the long-term, which is vitally important,’ said John Hamon, Andium’s chief operations officer.
He added that although £250m had been ring-fenced for housing, the amount that would be invested in the coming years in boosting the Island’s housing stock was ‘more like £500m’ when returns and reinvestments are taken into account.
He also said that in total about £330m of actual funding was required and Andium was currently looking at alternative sources to top up the £250m.
‘We are speaking to lenders at the moment,’ he said.
As well as the loans being repaid by Andium with interest, the company – which has assets worth around £1bn – also gives the States £28 million a year generated from rents.
