The GSD says the Government’s recent statement on housing is “simply the Government bowing to the inevitable reality that their failures will not lead to completions for years”.

A statement from the GSD follows below:

For the Government to use COVID as an excuse for its failure to meet its commitments on the housing  projects it announced in 2017 is a stunning rewriting of history. It is also typical of a Government who treats  the truth as an elastic concept.  

The Government announced the three projects at Hassans Centenary Terraces [HCT], Bob Peliza Mews [BPM]  and Chatham Views [CV] with great fanfare in 2017. It was an announcement clearly designed to garner votes  in the run-up to the 2019 general election. The Government promised then that hundreds of those flats  would be ready as soon as the summer of 2019. That was well before the onset of the first COVID lockdown  in March 2020.  

The fact is that none of these homes have been delivered and in two of these sites construction has not even  started. The updated timetable is not new either. It has simply taken the Government 6 months to admit  what the GSD has been saying was the likely timescale. As far back as April the GSD pointed out that the  information being provided by Government in answer to GSD questions in Parliament meant that the  projects would not be complete for years and probably not till 2025 or beyond.  

This latest press release is therefore not an announcement of anything new. It is simply the Government  bowing to the inevitable reality that their failures will not lead to completions for years. What they have said  today is that Phase 2 of HCT and the Bob Peliza and Chatham Views projects will not be complete till 2025. 

This will be a stunning disappointment for hundreds of families who expected better given the Government  promises. If the Government had done what it said it would do the projects would have been largely  complete by the time COVD hit our community. It will not be lost on anyone that the construction industry  was one of the few industries that continued despite COVID with private developments that were ongoing  before COVID being finished in 2020 and this year. It is therefore not credible to blame COVID for the lack of  completion or commencement of these works before 2020 and not that credible to consider it was an  insurmountable hurdle after 2020. 

Leader of the Opposition Keith Azopardi said: 

“This is a Government that cannot accept it has failed even now when two of the three projects haven’t even  started and they are years behind schedule. There has to be something else to blame and it is COVID even  though Mr Picardo announced the developments of Hassans Centenary Terraces, Bob Peliza Mews and  Chatham Viewsin 2017 well before COVID and on the basis they would partly be completed in 2019 –in other  words well before the pandemic. Additionally, everyone will have noticed that construction continued in  other private housing developments during COVID because the construction industry was one of the few  sectors kept open under the lockdowns. The fact is that the Government has failed after announcing in 2017  that there would be partial completion in 2019. The three developments were nowhere near completion by 

the 2019 election. BPM and CV had not started in 2019 let alone finished. They have still not even started now. As we stated months ago actual completion of all three developments is unlikely till 2025 or even 2026.  Mr Picardo is failing again by not accepting they got it wrong. He cannot rewrite history on his promises. He  is also failing the hundreds of disappointed families that are affected by the delays and are stretched  financially or have been kept hanging for years because of the failures.  

The reality is that despite promises that the housing schemes announced in 2017 would be largely complete  by now they are all massively behind schedule. Hundreds of families have been let down by all this. Families were promised by Government that they would be in their homes by now. The promises were hollow and  they’ve failed in delivering them. Mr Picardo’s statements that they are “moving as fast as possible” or that  they will not “suffer one day’s delay that can be avoided” or that the delay does not arise from their political  management of the projects is just more hollow talk from a Government that cannot be believed and is  defensively trying to blame anyone or anything for their failures.”