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Residents told to ‘put everything into a spreadsheet’ after 18 months of complaints over development
Residents worn down by months of issues with an ongoing housing development have been asked to catalogue their woes in a spreadsheet.
The Taylor Wimpey development in Kirklevington, Yarm has attracted complaints about noise, flooding risk from a drainage “lake” and wagons rolling through a quiet village. Now a meeting of the Kirklevington and Castle Leavington Parish Council has been told of further issues with insurance and electricity.
Council chairman Councillor Nigel De Badgecoe said: “We have, dare I say, a love-hate relationship with Taylor Wimpey. They are a law to themselves.
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“The issues that we face regarding Taylor Wimpey is that they just do what they want when they want irrespective of the rules, start times, finish times. They just will start at 6am when they’re not allowed to start until 8.
“There’s restrictions of the movements they can make around school times because they have to go past the primary school. But they go sailing through with HGVs. It’s the constant flow of deliveries at the wrong time. They start early, they finish late.
“It’s clearly a problem. It’s getting reported to Stockton Borough Council on a very regular basis.
“Then we’ve got the whole issue with the SuDS (sustainable drainage system) as well. It was initially down as a public open space, only there’s no green now, because it’s full of water. It’s had the whole top layer taken off and they’ve dug a great big basin.
“There’s no way anyone’s going anywhere near it. It contains hundreds of thousands of gallons, thousands of cubic metres of water, and it wasn’t even on the plans to start with.”
But the developer has said it sent letters to residents affected by drainage works, held meetings to discuss concerns and launched a website to submit queries. It said road maintenance was the council’s responsibility and HGV movements were considered before the plans were approved.
Larger drainage basin
Cllr De Badgecoe added that council officials told him they had written to residents informing them about changing the plans, creating the basin and making it bigger than Taylor Wimpey had wanted: “Stockton Council had advised them they wanted to make it larger to accommodate the known flooding that takes place in that area.
“Actually they’re saying Taylor Wimpey are doing you a favour by making it as big as they have because it will take the run-off that used to flood the houses on Westlands.”
He said the council had refused to underwrite higher insurance for residents who now lived near a large body of water: “What are Stockton Council going to do about it? And their answer is absolutely nothing at all, we have no intentions of underwriting it, we will not be held liable.”
Mr De Badgecoe said a solution had been approved by Stockton Council and they had been told the problem would go away in about two months and “all the lorries will go the minute they’ve got the drainage plumbed in”.
People ‘have fallen silent’
He said Stockton Council lacked enforcement officers and there was a reluctance to enforce planning conditions as this could be challenged and lead to a costly legal battle. He added after 18 months of objections, photos, videos and information he had been told “starting from now you need to put everything into a spreadsheet with a photo, a date, a time”.
He told the meeting: “I don’t want the last one-and-a-half years’ worth of reports to be written off. That’s unfair.
“My frustration was, we’re telling you it’s happening on a daily basis. They can see for themselves.
“The problem I have is all the people that used to report stuff have now fallen silent. We need to start cataloguing this.”
Finite council resources
He said they had asked for a Taylor Wimpey contact to talk openly about issues: “I don’t particularly want necessarily Stockton Borough Council to come along with a big stick and beat up Taylor Wimpey.
“What I’d like is Taylor Wimpey just to do what they said they were going to do. I think the residents are now worn down. And I don’t know if there’s any benefit in poking the bear.”
He said Stockton Council officers had given their time: “They’ve come back with all the actions they said they were going to do and they’ve provided evidence where we’ve asked for it so I don’t have an axe to grind with them.”
Cllr Terry Collins said: “At the end of the day you’ve got finite resources with the council. So if the people here can actually provide the evidence, that’s going to help the council enormously.
“They’ll do their bit but they can’t be here all the time. I think whatever we do has got to be time-referenced and dated so it is evidence.”
Electrical issue
Former parish councillor Jennie Beaumont said: “The bottom line is that Stockton Council have to act on that. That’s the bit that’s missing. People give up because nothing has happened.
“It needs to be tackled. They need to get their enforcement right and I think it’s something we should be forcing them to do.”
Cllr Alistair McLee said: “There’s now an electrical issue on the site. There is not enough power to power whatever they’re wanting it for. They’re seeking the cable which services St Martins Way and trying to get into that and join it up to the rest of the site.”
Ms Beaumont said: “Apparently they can’t move on it because they now have to go back for planning permission to dig a little bit more of the path up to actually find the junction. There’s going to be a delay with the site until they get the planning permission.”
Working on proposals
A Taylor Wimpey spokesperson has said: “We are aware of concerns from some residents about our development in Kirklevington and would like to assure them of our commitment to carrying out work on site with as minimal disruption as possible. We are operating in accordance with the approved planning permission for the development and in line with the construction environmental management plan (CEMP), which has also been approved by Stockton Borough Council.
“We will continue to work closely with the council and to update neighbouring residents as our work on site continues.”
The developed added Stockton Council stipulated the location of the drainage pond, and the council said the location was agreed as part of the approved planning application.
Councillor Nigel Cooke, the council’s cabinet member for regeneration and housing, said: “The water at the Kirklevington development is temporary runoff which is being captured by the SuDS scheme that was agreed during the planning process. We are aware that the developer is also working on proposals with Northumbrian Water to manage the water levels on site.
“We have and will continue to investigate all breaches of planning control which fall within our remit in the agreed construction and environmental management plan (CEMP). We’ve written to the parish council to address their concerns and are monitoring the site closely to ensure the developers meet their responsibilities within the CEMP.”
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