The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lucy Frazer)
I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) for so powerfully articulating his constituents’ and many other constituents’ concerns regarding unadopted roads. He talked about constituents who are often paying full council tax but are forced to live on private roads riddled with potholes and devoid of basic necessities such as streetlights, road signs or litter bins. My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) also raised the matter of Knights Meadow, which is causing concerns. I believe we all can agree that, irrespective of whether a housing estate is old or new, no one should be forced to live on a street that is so poorly maintained that it negatively impacts their quality of life.
First, I will directly respond to the recommendations that my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire has made, especially in relation to section 278 and section 38 agreements, as well as the guidance in Wales to which he referred. Then I would like to identify some of the steps that the Government are already taking to strengthen the enforcement powers of local authorities and to make sure that roads are properly maintained. Then I will address some of the broader points raised by my hon. Friend.
I take this opportunity to reassure my hon. Friend that I am committed to working with him and Members across this House to make sure that we can find the right solutions to the problems he has highlighted. I am not only happy to, but would be delighted to meet him and share the benefits of his research and expertise and to discuss this issue in more depth so that we can find the right answers to these questions.
Turning now to my hon. Friend’s recommendations, he mentioned that in Wales a good practice guide has been adopted by local highway authorities and house building federations. He noted that in the pre-application stage, the highway authority is involved. If five or more properties are served by public highways, the highway authority serves an advance payments code notice on the developer within six weeks of building approval.
In England, the Department for Transport has issued clear and simple guidance to councils to help them navigate some of the complexities surrounding new developments and the adoption, maintenance and upkeep of roads. They can use that guidance in those initial conversations with developers before a road is built, and long before they become major headaches for parties, not least homeowners themselves.
The Department for Transport also published an advice note in 2017 on road adoption and made some significant updates to it in August this year, with some useful advice on bonds and fees. I would be happy and keen to talk to my hon. Friend about how we can further improve on this work that the DFT has done.
Caroline Nokes
My right hon. and learned Friend makes an important point about the guidance that the DFT has already published and given to major house builders. The point I want to make is that as in the case of my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), the developers in my constituency are major house builders. These are people who should have had this guidance over many years and who know how to build roads of an adoptable standard. Will my right hon. and learned Friend use the considerable heft of her Department to summon them in and suggest that they start using the guidance already available to them?
Lucy Frazer
My right hon. Friend makes a very valuable point, and I would also be very keen to speak to her on this issue, because she clearly has the same issues in her constituency, as we all do, and is very interested in this point. We do raise many issues with house builders, and I can add this to the list to raise, because it is important that the guidance is followed and that we get solutions.
My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire suggested that England needs more national standards. As he knows, under the Highways Act 1980, section 38 agreements allow new roads built by developers to become public highways, with the cost of maintenance falling to the public purse. It is certainly possible for local highways authorities to adopt streets for which they are not currently responsible, but this is usually agreed at local level, not national level, between the developer and the council. It is true that councils can use section 38 to step in if a developer fails to keep its promises regarding a new road or street. The legislation already gives highways authorities the power to do that, but there is no legal obligation on them to do so, so ultimately it is a question for the relevant council. I understand that the Department for Transport’s position is that it does not intervene in operational issues, and that it does not have powers to make statutory or impose national standards. That said, I do think it is important we continue to discuss this issue to ascertain what more can be done.
It is worth saying that the local highways authority cannot of course always adopt a road on a new development each and every time, not least because that may not be what residents themselves want. The road may also be incomplete or not built to the right standard, and the drainage may not yet have been adopted by the appropriate body. For whatever reason, when a road is not adopted by the local highway, liability for maintenance automatically falls to those who own the properties facing the road. What that looks like may vary depending on the housing development, but by and large estate rent charges are the main way in which residents pick up the tab for a road’s maintenance. The problem arises when homeowners are unexpectedly slapped with bills to maintain roads they did not even know they were responsible for and, worse, when they challenge the estate rent charges, they find that they have limited rights to do anything about it.
Andrew Selous
I am aware that some unadopted roads go back decades and decades, but it does concern me that in a major new development on the east of Leighton Buzzard in my constituency, where residents moved in only in 2003, the roads are still not adopted. It is 20 years later, and I really think it is entirely reasonable that the people buying those homes would think that these issues would have been sorted out by the developer with the agreement of the local authority. Does the Minister get the importance of these issues not just dragging on and on, and the need for quite swift resolution?
Lucy Frazer
I do totally understand the point. As a local MP, I have worked with developers and streets to get to the position where roads are adopted so that the local authority can take over. I totally understand the point my hon. Friend is making, and I look forward to the conversations we will have about how we can address this further.
Coming back to the estate rent charges, we and the Government recognise that this is a real concern for homeowners, and we are actually tackling it. We intend to legislate to give freeholders on private and mixed-tenure estates the equivalent rights of leaseholders, which means they will be able to directly challenge unfair estate rent charges. For the first time, they will be able to apply to the first-tier tribunal to appoint a new manager who can better handle the estate rent charges and is more responsive to what residents want, because as my hon. Friend said in his speech, they sometimes think they can do this better than the developers or agencies themselves.
My hon. Friend also talked about his concerns when developers fail to build roads to adoptable standards. When that happens, we want councils to take the toughest possible enforcement action. This is where the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which is currently going through this House, has a pivotal role to play in strengthening the hand of councils. Our reforms will remove the current four-year time limit that applies to some breaches; in future, it will be 10 years for all breaches of planning control. We are also doubling the maximum period of temporary stop notices from 28 to 56 days, and at the same time we are focused on closing existing loopholes that let developers obtain planning permission after a breach has occurred.
Caroline Nokes
May I just ask the Minister whether any of those powers will apply retrospectively, or is this just going forward? Will my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) and I still be dealing with a 20-year-old case in his constituency and one that has certainly been rumbling on for 10 years in mine when the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill has passed?
Lucy Frazer
I am very happy to get back to my right hon. Friend, but I assume that in any event the maximum is 10 years for a breach of the planning controls.
Caroline Nokes
Very briefly on that specific point, we have existing problems, but my question is whether the new legislation will act retrospectively to tackle the existing problems, or is this only going to solve future problems that have not yet occurred in developments yet to be built?
Lucy Frazer
I am very happy to get back to my right hon. Friend on that specific point, but we do recognise that if developers flout the rules and breach conditions they will also run the risk of being hit with unlimited fines.
The status quo is that when a new development is granted planning permission, councils can use section 106 planning obligations to make sure developers build roads to an adoptable standard. It is important to stress that when residents have a complaint about the local planning and highways authority that has not been adequately resolved, they can also complain to the local government and social care ombudsman.
I want to finish by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire and my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North for securing and taking part in this debate. It is an important issue, and we in the Government do not underestimate for a second the misery that unadopted roads can inflict on our residents. Be in no doubt that we get it that poorly constructed, poorly maintained and poorly funded roads and street lights blight neighbourhoods, erode people’s pride in the place they live and, ultimately, can ruin lives. Where loopholes have been exploited, councils have been lacking enforcement powers and homebuyers have found themselves powerless to challenge unfair bills, we are already changing the law to put things right. I am very grateful for the constructive thoughts of my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire on where there is further room for improvement, and I look forward to further conversations.
We are committed to working with councils, the housing industry and hon. Members from both sides of the House to raise the bar on the quality and safety of roads and streets in all developments, and to level up communities by ensuring that vital infrastructure and services are right there on the door step when they are needed. That is our ambition, and that is what we are determined to do.
Question put and agreed to.