People living on a housing estate with roads left unadopted for more than seven years say they “want answers” from the council over a missing pot of money.
Kelvin Hilditch, who has lived on the Brereton Grange estate in Arclid for more than two years, said he regularly pulled weeds from the gutters and pavements as Cheshire East had refused to take ownership of the estate.
The plea came after records unearthed by Congleton town councillor Robert Douglas showed that a pot of £107,400 paid to Cheshire East by developer Morris Homes had not been spent on road safety measures, which should have been completed before the first resident moved in.
Mr Hilditch said: “As a council tax-paying member of the public, I’m asking where has that money gone? Why can’t we get an answer?
“It’s nonsense. Have they spent it on something else?”
The section 106 agreement, signed off in 2016, stated that in addition to the highways contribution, Morris Homes would also pay £163,472 towards secondary schools in Sandbach and a further £12,442.30, neither of which was received by the council.
Coun Douglas, who found the documents as part of his long-running investigation into how Cheshire East manages its s106 money, described the failure to collect the overdue funds as “catastrophic”.
The agreement said: “Prior to first occupation the developer will complete the provision of a ghost island right turn lane on the A50 to serve the main access into the site … in the interests of highway safety and to comply with policy of the Congleton Local Plan 2005.”
Giving the same reason on the grounds of safety, it also said the developer should complete off-site highway works to the Davenport Lane junction with Spark Lane, the section of the main road that runs between Arclid traffic lights and Walhill roundabout, leading to the Congleton link road.
It said the work would include “carriageway widening, footways and street lighting fronting the site on Davenport Lane”.
Contact
Mr Hilditch said he had repeatedly tried to contact the council over the unadopted pathways on his estate, but “couldn’t believe it” when he read in the “Chronicle” that Cheshire East had received the money but not completed the road safety works.
He said: “Every time I’ve called them, they say they’ve got to do something with the (Davenport Lane) junction, but they haven’t got enough funding in. Well, we know now it’s not that they haven’t had the money!”
Referring to the junction onto his estate from the A50, he said: “If you’re in the middle of the road, every bit of traffic has to stay behind you until you can turn. There needs to be a slip road.
“Cars are beeping behind you wanting you to go into the opposite lane, then they drive on the pavement to get around you.
“I’m absolutely disgusted and appalled that these works were planned and never completed – it’s an accident waiting to happen.”
Mr Hilditch said he had asked Cheshire East and Morris Homes why the roads on the estate had not yet been adopted, but kept getting “fobbed off”.
He said: “As a person on the estate, I want answers. Surely £100,000 is enough to do at least some of the improvements?
“They need to do something, because a legally unadopted estate becomes a problem when you want to sell your house.”
Cheshire East Council was asked to comment.
