The GSD has said that the GSLP Government “cannot even keep up with its own spin on housing or anything else for that matter.”

A statement continued: “The original completion date for Chatham Views was not 2023 - it was announced in 2017 with completion in 2021. COVID cannot be used as a reason why those houses were not built because the project should have been well under way by 2020 when Gibraltar was impacted by the COVID pandemic. The delay beyond that has been due to many issues but never before has the Government said it was because the site was reserved for COVID reasons. This now sounds like a Government prepared to say anything to obscure long-standing delays BEFORE COVID. The biggest point is that the site would not have been available at all by 2020 if they had done what they said they would when they announced this in 2017. 

“Equally there is no answer to the fact that they originally promised to complete Bob Peliza mews by 2019. Again, the fact that this housing development will not complete till more than a decade after they were announced is failure and will bring huge disappointment to many families.”

Housing shadow Minister Damon Bossino said: “In their desperation to distract from these issues the GSLP Government cannot even keep up with the churn of their own so-called “facts” of the houses they have built. They have now given so many different statistics that the public cannot know what is true anymore. 

“In their 2023 manifesto they said they had delivered 1345 affordable homes in their 12 years in office. Clearly therefore the 2015 promise to build 1700 homes in the four year period 2015-2019 was not met. The GSLP website however says they’ve delivered 2100 affordable homes. To add to the confusion the Chief Minister yesterday says they have so far in 13 years provided 1273 homes. 

“All these numbers are different. Yesterday’s press release is an admission that not only did they fail to deliver on their 2015 promise but that what they told the electorate 12 months ago on housing delivery was not true. They are simply now unbelievable on their promises and cannot keep up with their own lies."

Leader of the Opposition, Keith Azopardi, said: “Instead of desperately seeking to defend themselves politically what the Government should be doing is delivering on its promises on housing because there are hundreds of disappointed families that grow more frustrated by the day given the delays and the spin papered over their failures.”