Open email from Cllr Alex Riley

I’m sending this email to all the residents of Home Farm whose email addresses I have. Apologies to those of you who live on the Persimmon development, because it doesn’t affect you.

There are many serious problems with the way this estate has been developed, but the one which generates most emails to me is that of the roads which have not been made up by the developers. I have promised several of you that I would reply to your enquiries and I thought it useful to copy that reply more widely.

It is my view that this is a relatively straightforward problem to resolve. Here’s why.

The “spine roads” have not been made up, though cul-de-sacs have. The ostensible reason for this is that the developers had contracted with Coftons to do this work and Coftons are now in administration. The developers appear to be using this as a reason for delaying making the roads up.

There appears to be no “Section 38” agreement in place for these roads. A Section 38 Agreement is an agreement between the developer and the Highways authority (i.e. CCC) and does not involve SCDC at all. The agreement effectively says “If the developer builds this road to the HA’s specification and maintains it for a given period then the HA will adopt it”.

I have been given to understand that Wimpey are considering restarting construction on the site and that therefore it will suit them rather well to sort this mess out first – after all, how would it look to prospective purchasers if their 4-year-old homes still had no made-up roads?

It seems to me that in law none of the developers have a leg to stand on if their contract with you as purchasers contains the fourth Schedule which I have seen in the contract between Kings Oak (now Barratts) and one resident.

This Schedule appears to commit the developer to make up the roads. If Coftons go into administration then the problem would appear to reside with Barratts or Wimpeys, not with you or Coftons’ administrators. The ultimate recourse you have is for one (or more) of you to sue the developers for failure to deliver on this Schedule. I would have thought that the receipt of a few letters indicating a readiness to do just that would have an electrifying result on these developers.

And there is another course of action which it is easy for you to pursue. I have been advised that lawyers acting for the original purchasers should have ensured a retention on the purchase price until the road is made up. Failure to do this renders the lawyer liable to a negligence claim. So why don’t as many of you as possible start to turn the heat up on your conveyancing lawyers, insisting on them dealing with the retention.

The sewer situation is, I believe, related, though sewers are covered by a “Section 18” agreement. I believe that sewers under non-adopted roads cannot themselves be adopted. Hence resolving the road issue should automatically resolve the sewer adoption issue.

I hope this helps. I know that there are a significant number of other issues with the development, but this is one that I am convinced can be relatively simply fixed.

Good Luck!
Alex