Business of the House

Anne Main Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

May we have an urgent debate on the number of roads that are not brought up to adoptable standard by developers? This is a nationwide problem. There are roads in my constituency that have been awaiting adoption for 10 years, and Taylor Wimpey is refusing to engage with the local authority. We must debate this issue, especially if we are going to increase housing development in this country.

[Sir George Young]

I suspect that many other Members have also encountered precisely that problem, where residents living in recently developed estates find that the roads are still in the ownership of the developer, that they are not up to a standard that the local authority will take over, and that the developer will not bring them up to the appropriate standard. I will contact my colleagues at the Department for Communities and Local Government to see if there are any steps that the Government need to take to ensure private developers honour their obligations, often under section 106, so that the residents on such estates have roads of a quality to which they are entitled.