The new Labour government have rightly placed addressing the housing crisis central to our programme for government, delivering security and opportunity for hundreds of thousands of families.
To meet this ambition, we must ensure that we’re building not just houses, but communities.
My constituency, spanning the edges of three local authorities, that has seen lots of development over the past ten to fifteen years, I have seen how the current system for managing new estates isn’t fit for purpose.
The system of adoption, or lack thereof on new estates, and the subsequent estate management fees, has left residents who have worked hard and saved up for their first or new home living without the very basics: roads, pavements, and communal facilities.
I recently led a debate in Parliament to highlight the problems, calling for action to protect those living on new built estates.
I’ve seen people left for years without a tarmacked road, finished pavements, unkept landscaping or in one case even streetlights switched on.
Residents are left without timeframes or any ability to compel developers to complete even the most basic works after five, ten or fifteen years, with local authorities having little power to support. My constituents expressed their frustration at a lack of engagement or accountability from developers who too often move onto their next development before the basics are in place.
A Council’s Senior Planning Officer expressed that the current system is too skewed towards developers, where they pick their own contractors and timeframes, and too frequently these aren’t meeting the standards where they can be adopted by local authorities.
Residents on these estates are paying Council Tax and being made to pay an additional estate management fee, yet despite paying additional fees, there estates aren’t up to the standards of those who don’t pay the additional charge.
The estate management fees are too frequently opaque, with little residents can do to challenge. I set out in the debate that the current system provides little access to justice for residents. It simply doesn’t seem right that a developer that has not met its promises to homeowners can profiteer from those same homeowners for years without delivering basic infrastructure.
The Minister recognised the importance of addressing this issue to provide confidence for those on new estates and I look forward to proposals that will come forward to end the injustice of fleecehold and better protect residential freeholders.
The new Labour government is already taking steps to tackle our housing crisis with the target of 1.5million new homes, reforming the leasehold system, ending section 21; and reform of the rental market.
Addressing the issues linked to estate management fees and adoption are another key step in addressing this if we are to provide confidence in delivering our housing targets. I am pleased that the new government is committed to tackling this.
You can read the full debate here: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2024-10-15/debates/41024DB3-A2E5-4E7C-BDBC-8AA3C24E5F91/details
For too long developers have left residents without the basics
