Housing Estates: Construction

(asked on 18th July 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent estimate his Department has made of the proportion of new housing being built on estates where the roads, drainage and open spaces are to remain unadopted; what the recent trends are in that proportion; and what the reasons are for those trends.


Answered by
Marcus Jones Portrait
Marcus Jones
Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
This question was answered on 25th July 2022

When a new development is granted planning permission, local authorities can use section 106 planning obligations to secure a commitment from developers to provide and maintain communal spaces and facilities. It is up to developers and local planning authorities to agree appropriate funding arrangements for developments with common areas or shared services.

Planning obligations may only constitute a reason for granting planning permission for the development if the obligation is necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms; directly related to the development; and fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind to the development.

Section 38 agreements facilitate the adoption of new roads built by developers to become highways maintained by the public purse. Whether a road is offered up for adoption is determined by the developer. Where a road is offered for adoption, the Highways Authority will assess whether the road has been constructed to the correct standard and will make a decision whether or not to adopt the road. This department does not hold data on unadopted roads.

In all cases, the Government believes that it should be clear to potential purchasers what the arrangements are for the maintenance of roads and upkeep of open space, public or otherwise. Where a road is not adopted by the local authority the responsibility for maintaining the road rests with third parties, which are usually the owners of properties that front onto it. Estate rent charges are one way that residents cover the unadopted road’s maintenance. However, it is not appropriate that these homeowners have limited rights to challenge these costs.

That is why the Government intends to legislate to give freeholders on private and mixed tenure estates equivalent rights to leaseholders to challenge the reasonableness of estate rent charges, as well as a right to apply to the First-tier Tribunal to appoint a new manager to manage the provision of services covered by estate charges.

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