Decision details

With the consent of Council, Councillor Fox-Davies moved an amendment to his motion as follows:

“Many of my our Parishes have new housing developments all of which include roads and other infrastructure which will become OCC responsibility to maintain in the future.

The position in standard procedures for highways agreements (further to the Highways Act 1980) allows for OCC to take a bond to ensure that associated infrastructure is delivered with all speed and to the standard that allows OCC to adopt the new development roads once the developer has maintained them for a year.

At many of these developments, the housing is either fully or almost complete, but there are long lists of unfinished works preventing OCC from adopting the roads and associated infrastructure, many of which have been outstanding for many months or even years. 

Taking one example, the housing development has been finished for five years, the developer has banked their profits from the housing sales, but there is a list of over 70 defects (not minor) which are still outstanding.

As the estate has not been adopted, there are many issues which cannot be addressed (such as traffic controls/parking/lighting defects).

This Council therefore demands that the Communities Directorate use all legal powers available to ensure that maximum pressure is brought to bear on developers to enable all new developments to be adopted with speed and efficiency.”

The motion as amended was put to the vote and was carried unanimously.

RESOLVED: (54 votes to 0)

“Many of our Parishes have new housing developments all of which include roads and other infrastructure which will become OCC responsibility to maintain in the future.

The position in standard procedures for highways agreements (further to the Highways Act 1980) allows for OCC to take a bond to ensure that associated infrastructure is delivered with all speed and to the standard that allows OCC to adopt the new development roads once the developer has maintained them for a year.

At many of these developments, the housing is either fully or almost complete, but there are long lists of unfinished works preventing OCC from adopting the roads and associated infrastructure, many of which have been outstanding for many months or even years. 

Taking one example, the housing development has been finished for five years, the developer has banked their profits from the housing sales, but there is a list of over 70 defects (not minor) which are still outstanding.

As the estate has not been adopted, there are many issues which cannot be addressed (such as traffic controls/parking/lighting defects).

This Council therefore demands that the Communities Directorate use all legal powers available to ensure that maximum pressure is brought to bear on developers to enable all new developments to be adopted with speed and efficiency.”