Leicestershire MP calls out 'cowboy' developers who left his constituents living in excrement

A Leicestershire MP has claimed “cowboy” developers have left some of his constituents battling major problems with their homes. Two of the constituents have faced years-long fights to sort out sewage problems, while others have been hit with unexpected fees or have had to use their own time and money to sort problems with their new homes.

MP for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston Neil O’Brien raised the issues faced by local residents in a speech in Parliament yesterday. The comments came as part of a debate on the proposed Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill. MPs in the House of Commons had their final debate on the bill yesterday and it is now due to progress to the House of Lords.

The legislation is intended to improve home ownership for leaseholders and freeholders in England and Wales. A leaseholder purchases the right to live in a property for a pre-determined length of time, but does not own the property itself. A freeholder owns the land and the property.

Mr O’Brien raised the cases of residents on two Leicestershire estates. He said they “have faced sewage in their street and even flowing up into their sinks, dishwashers and showers”. Some living there have been left “unable to wash” because of it, he said.

One of the estates, Meadow Hill, in Wigston, has had a sewage problem for around six years, but the company which owns it “denies” there is a problem, he claimed “The sewage system in the new estate is simply inadequate,” he said.

“The homes were originally built by Westleigh Homes and were taken over by Countryside Partnerships after completion, which itself has been taken over by Vistry Group. Vistry continues to deny the problem and will not take responsibility, even though I have seen for myself bits of toilet paper in the road that have come spurting up from overflowing sewers. Vistry does not fix the problem. It occasionally sends people to clean up, but mainly it is left to residents to clean up the faeces.”

He did not give the location of the other estate facing similar problems, saying the developer had now “stepped up” and “seems serious about fixing the problem”, so he would not name them. He added: “The problems have been going on for about four years. The developer plugged the sewage system from a new estate into a sewer for an older estate, causing the older sewage system to overflow with rain water.

“After four years of denials from the developer, the residents have proved, with the help of Severn Trent, where the problem is coming from. The developer has, in fairness, finally ‘fessed up to causing the problem, and the new person in charge locally seems serious about fixing the problem, so I will not name them for now.”

The problems with new homes, he continued, were not limited to just sewage issues. He said one constituent who moved into a new home in Kibworth had been subjected to “numerous rat infestations due to the pipes in her new home not being fitted correctly”. She has also had to deal with “mould in the bathroom because the bath was also not fitted correctly”, he added.

Another local resident, this time of Wellington Place, in Market Harborough, had had “more than 200 snags on their property”, Mr O’Brien told the chamber. He said: “The toilets did not drain properly, and the downstairs toilet did not work at all for many months, which meant that their disabled daughter had to go upstairs to use the loo.

“The entire garden needed to be excavated to be fixed and, alarmingly, the fire alarms did not work properly. My constituent found it difficult to get hold of the developer, Davidsons, to get any of those issues addressed, because it had sacked the people responsible for aftercare on the estate.”

Speaking specifically on leasehold concerns in his constituency, he raised the case of “Karen”. He claimed she had told him dealing with her leasehold company was “like having a part time job” and said she was “being charged for, among other things, terrorism insurance for a fence”.

Mr O’Brien said another constituent, “James”, had told the MP that he had spent “about 50 days’ work over the first couple of years” dealing with his unadopted estate and trying to put right some of the “mistakes” made by developers.

Developers are also “wriggling out of planning conditions” agreed when approval is given for a new development, the MP claimed. These conditions are typically intended to ensure a development is built in a way that provides a suitable standard of living and that residents will have access to all the services they need.

Mr O’Brien said: “We need to stop developers wriggling out of planning conditions more generally through variations, as one developer is trying to do at the top of Kettering Road in Market Harborough — it is trying to get rid of a bus service it promised when it was trying to get planning permission.

“One of the most common abuses is that developers promise that there will be a new GP surgery as part of a new estate, but in fact have no plan, no intention or no way to deliver it. I am afraid I know several colleagues who have had that happen in their constituencies.”

Mr O’Brien said he was confident the Government was “moving in the right direction” with the new Bill. He called on members of the House of Lords to help them take proactive steps to improve the situation for residents in his own constituency and the county as a whole.

He concluded: “People have worked hard, saved up a lot, done all the right things, and bought a new home, but they are getting mugged by an industry that, although also having some good players, has some real cowboys. As I said yesterday, the people in my constituency want a new sheriff—in the form of our current Housing Minister—to ride into town on his white horse, blow some of those bad guys away, put right what is being done wrongly and address the glaring injustices that my constituents are experiencing.”