New build housing estate in Shrewsbury where developers have not even finished off roads and paths.

Shropshire Star

The Lily Hay Estate in Shrewsbury has been finished for a bit now but the residents feel abandoned and are left with unfinished paths and roads and messy areas.

Transcript

00:00You're a resident here in Shrewsbury on the Lillie Hay Estate.

00:03I am.

00:04And how old's the estate roughly?

00:06Nearly, well it was first people moved in in December 2019, so five years this Christmas.

00:12And we're going to show on the viewers on the video there some of the issues.

00:17It's still a mess isn't it? The paths, the road.

00:19It is dreadful and I've been fighting the cause for at least two years.

00:24We haven't had a site foreman on this estate for two years.

00:29So nobody walks it, nobody understands.

00:32Taylor Wimpey's customer service is absolutely appalling and I've been in touch with them

00:37monthly, weekly and daily for two years and it's been really stressful.

00:43It's hard going but we won't give in.

00:46The residents are very very unhappy and we just need to get it sorted.

00:52So Lynne when you find yourself moving to an estate you know they say oh it's going to be this,

00:57it's going to be that, it's going to look wonderful

00:59and then you spend a lot of money on a house and they don't finish it.

01:03They don't you know finish the paths, the roads, the kind of communal areas look a mess.

01:09What comebacks do you have that the council don't want to know,

01:12trading standards don't want to know?

01:14The council don't want to know because they say until it's completely finished

01:18they don't adopt the roads.

01:19So until then they don't take it off Taylor Wimpey.

01:22Taylor Wimpey just have nothing to say other than we understand your frustrations.

01:28They have no idea how frustrating it is.

01:32It's frightening, we went 18 months with no street lights whatsoever.

01:37Through the winter it was dangerous, doesn't matter whether it's health and safety issues

01:41we're talking of, they just don't want to know.

01:45They treat us like morons and it's just not acceptable and we won't go away.

01:52And you were saying what you'd like to see is you know

01:54government taking a more of a proactive kind of position.

01:59Possibly you know there's a pool of money that doesn't get released until kind of

02:03they've proven they've done all the work and signed off the estate, some kind of system.

02:09I believe when you're buying a new home,

02:12whether it's mortgage or whether you're buying it is irrelevant but

02:15a pool and a percentage of the money of the cost of the house should be held

02:20in a trust or by a solicitor, by somebody and until the estate is finished,

02:28so the houses have been delivered and snagged, the roads, the paths and the POSs are complete

02:33and the lighting, that's when they should receive that extra part of the money.

02:38Now we hand our money over immediately we have no comeback whatsoever.

02:44They can walk away and all we can do is fight and we have been fighting for two years.

02:50It's very tiring and it's it's really stressful.

02:54So you were saying that this path here has issues with the drainage

02:57because there's a bit of rain and the whole path here just floods out.

03:00Yes, that's just from the drizzle we had yesterday.

03:03Yeah.

03:03Normally right from last October with the rain that we've had this last year,

03:09this was completely covered.

03:11You wouldn't be able to walk through it, you'd have to walk around it and the grass would be sodden

03:15and the same is at that end.

03:18So you couldn't access into the estate through its natural walkway.

03:24So Lynne, we've got the drain covers here peeping out.

03:28It even says so on the sign.

03:29And you were saying that some of them have had to be done a few times because they just wear away.

03:33Some of them have been topped up at least four times because the cars have to drive around them

03:37because there's no room to go either side of them, it constantly wears it down.

03:41So they keep coming and topping it up rather than actually topping the road

03:45and this road should have been topped 15 months ago.

03:53So Lynne, we've just got a bit of a play area here

03:55and you were pointing out there's some stones edging.

04:01I mean that's, you know, if someone falls down and bangs their head on that.

04:05And the weird thing is this looks like it was meant to be a path doesn't it or something?

04:09I've had no reply at all as to why it's even here.

04:12Yeah.

04:12But the only thing I can think it's a path

04:14because currently people are now coming and walking and they walk along here

04:19and they walk on these people's private drives which they're not supposed to.

04:22And how much are residents paying for this to have this maintained?

04:26To have this maintained we've just had the bill £8,000 a year.

04:30Just for mowing some grass?

04:31Just for this child's play area, yes.

04:34£8,000 a year?

04:35Yes and it only gets mowed every fortnightly

04:39between May and September and the rest of the year it's not touched.

04:45So Lynne, the landscaping on the estate leaves a lot to be desired.

04:51It certainly does.

04:52We've had lots of POSs that have never been laid at all.

04:55We've had hedging that it's just been overtaken by the grass

05:01because the bark they put down they refuse to put any weed control underneath it.

05:06So everything just grows through it.

05:08Actually we can see that can't we if we walk along.

05:11So who's meant to maintain all this then?

05:15Taylor Wimpey were right up until the beginning of this month

05:18where they've just handed over to our estate management people.

05:23But we have yet to have any communication with them

05:29about how it's going to be managed once they've taken it on.

05:36So Lynne, randomly there's two lampposts.

05:39What's going on with that?

05:41There is.

05:42At the beginning of February a company came.

05:45The one is a sensor light that hasn't worked for some time

05:48and they are transitioning to the basic lamppost.

05:51But they have all been like this along the walkway since the beginning of February

05:56and nothing has happened since those days.

05:59And you were saying there's still some it's weird with the streetlights.

06:02There's streetlights that are on permanently.

06:04There are streetlights that are on 24-7.

06:06There are streetlights that don't come on at all.

06:09And there are streetlights that are incomplete.

06:11And nobody seems to have an answer as to why nothing is finished.

06:16There are three things for Taylor Wimpey to finish off.

06:20The one is the lighting.

06:22The one is the paths and roads.

06:23And the other is the POS.

06:24And we have none of them complete.

06:27Not one of the tasks they need to complete is done.

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