GSD Questions Government’s Westside Housing Plans
The GSD has criticised the Government’s plans for 2300 affordable homes at the Westside reclamation. The party says previous housing projects have faced delays and is questioning the timeline for the new development.
A statement from the GSD follows below:
The GSLP government needs to stop playing around with peoples’ expectations and stop making announcement after announcement about reclamations and affordable housing which they must know when they make them are unattainable and are merely made for electoral reasons. Now with the 2300 affordable homes the GSLP would have you believe that they will deliver as many houses as they promised in 4 terms of office in a couple of years. This is unbelievable.
At the time that the reclamation was first announced, the government said it would be ready by the early part of 2026 with the first homes being delivered by the early part of 2028. As matters stand there has already been a failure to keep to these promises. What faith can be placed on this new pronouncement?
As the GSD said when this project was first announced in January 2025, the generation of young, aspiring Gibraltarians who wish to purchase their homes, will be forgiven for being highly sceptical when previous developments such as Bob Peliza Mews and Chatham Views have been delayed by a decade in some cases and when, as the GSD warned at the time, it has already failed to deliver on its promises regarding this development.
The government has failed to provide detailed plans and other information for a development of this size, smacking as it does of shallow political posturing designed to garner votes from a large sector of the electorate which is seriously fed up with its repeated slow delivery and broken promises on housing.
This most recent statement fails to address the planning related concerns raised by the GSD when the project was first announced 19 months ago on matters such as schooling, traffic and building massification and more recently by those living there. No mention is made of how it is expected to house 2,300 units in that area.
Damon Bossino said: “This is not surprising from a government which is so seriously delayed in the publication of the new Development Plan; clearly lacks any notion of long-term planning; and thinks it can continue to survive on future untested announcements but fail on delivery.”
All of this suggests that this latest statement smacks of misplaced political opportunism, driven by the internal party politics of the party currently in office as they prepare for the transition to new leadership and a general election. Why, if not for that reason, has the Minister for Business and Health fronted this re-hashed and tired re-announcement along with the Chief Minister and not Ms Orfila as the Minister responsible for Housing who is so obviously being sidelined?
Leader of the Opposition Keith Azopardi said: “The Government should stop with this infantile approach to politics and govern for those many hundreds of mainly young people who are being disenfranchised as home-owners. The marginalisation of this crucial segment of Gibraltar society which represents the future has to be resolved with determination and action.”
