Some councils are finally clamping down on developers who don’t build what’s been agreed. Developers tend to prioritise building homes over building the playparks, GP surgeries and other essential community infrastructure that they agreed to build at the planning stage.
With developers dragging their heels over certain elements, some councillors have lost patience. In 2023, Reigate and Banstead Borough Council in Surrey issued a stop order on the Westvale Park site, near Gatwick Airport. The development of 1500 homes on farmers’ fields was supposed to include playgrounds and a community hall, and there were rules about what had to be built by a certain point in the project. These rules were not being followed.
The stop notice was a bold move from the council, especially as families were keen to move into their homes. The four building companies involved – Crest Nicholson, Persimmon, Taylor Wimpey and A2Dominion – eventually reached an agreement with the council. A series of bonds were put in place, which the council held so that they would have £12 million available to build the facilities themselves if the developers missed the new completion date.
The site now has several play areas, and the outstanding retail space, community hall, NHS GP surgery and allotments are due to be completed by the end of 2026.
Although there are plenty of examples of developers failing to fulfil their obligations, it has to be said that many developers take their responsibilities seriously. One such developer is Redrow. Alongside Quinn Estates, they are building 725 homes at the Conningbrook site near Ashford in Kent, adjacent to a £3.5-million engineered wetland area. It will filter excess nitrates and phosphates out of local waterways, protecting a nearby Special Area of Conservation and creating habitats for native wildlife.
The wetlands operate by diverting water from the Great Stour through engineered reed beds, where natural processes convert nutrients into benign forms, before returning purified water to the river.
These wetlands were required, due to a regulatory ban on new development without nutrient mitigation, but the developer was committed to fulfilling their side of the bargain, with the wetlands fully operational before the first homes were completed. The development also includes a new school, community centre, village green, parkland and path enhancements to connect residents to Conningbrook Lakes Country Park.
Whether developers fulfil their planning requirements or not, there is another “elephant-in-the-room” problem with these greenfield developments.
Jenny Raggett, Project Coordinator at campaign group Transport for New Homes, says this: “New housing estates being built in England resemble a jigsaw puzzle, with some of the most important pieces missing – the stations, the mass transit systems and on-site community provision and services. Housing targets aimed at rural or semi-rural parts of the country and a developer-led choice of location… are plonking more and more giant housing estates on fields on the edge of towns and villages, places where it’s all about driving.
“We need to build differently to avoid this ‘doughnut effect’, whereby everything ends up on out-of-town greenfield sites whilst brownfield sites lie unbuilt and derelict, and high streets are dying.”
It’s natural that greenfield sites are more attractive to developers, and it’s natural that they will drag their heels over elements like the GP surgery, which is less of a priority in terms of the financial benefits to them. The irony is that community buildings like schools and healthcare centres are part of what sells a development to buyers. Short-term thinking is a huge part of this problem.
While we have such a shortage of housing, developers can get away with selling homes without the necessary infrastructure and transport links. If we ever have a government committed to building enough homes, this will no longer be the case. Although it seems unlikely that will happen.
As Kevin McCloud of Grand Designs fame put it, when he spoke to The Times last week, “Our housing delivery market is so corrupt and it is so hollowed out. People talk about the current housing crisis. We’ve had a housing crisis since the mid-1990s, if not the 1980s. It’s a permanent state of affairs. It’s not a crisis, it’s just a really, really poor state of affairs.”
If more councils feel able to hold developers to account, perhaps the situation will gradually improve. In the meantime, if you need any assistance with the structural elements of an upcoming project, please do get in touch.
