Action For Housing Welcomes New Knights Court Homes But Calls For More Rental Stock

Action for Housing has welcomed the 20 new rental homes planned for Knights Court but says more needs to be done to address Gibraltar’s housing waiting list.

A statement from Action for Housing follows below:

Action for Housing welcomes the twenty new rental homes announced for Knights Court: three 3RKBs and seventeen 2RKBs, due for completion in September. Any addition to the rental stock is a step in the right direction, and 2RKBs in particular are in short supply, so this will make a real difference to the families who receive them.

However, twenty homes against a waiting list of almost a thousand only represents roughly 2% of the back log. The housing crisis in Gibraltar is not a supply blip, it is endemic and long-standing, and it will not be solved by ad-hoc additions of this size.

We would ask Minister Orfila if there are plans for government rental stock, rather than more "affordable" housing schemes that remain out of reach for many of the very families on the waiting list? And what role, if any, will genuine rental stock play in the new Westside reclamation project? If Westside is to be built out largely as private or "affordable" purchase housing, it will do little to dent a waiting list built on the need for rental homes. Government needs to tell the public now what proportion of that land will go to rental stock.