SCEPTICAL councillors at Warrington have asked for more details before considering a housing developer’s request to be released from an agreement to pay £160,000-a-year for five years towards a subsidised bus service.
The agreement, drawn up in 2005, was to provide an enhanced bus service for the company’s Edgewater Park development of some 400 dwellings off Thelwall Lane, Latchford.
Company bosses claim “abnormal” costs associated with the site have made the scheme unviable in today’s market conditions.
Although more than 75 per cent of the houses have been built, alongside the Manchester Ship Canal, near Latchford Locks, the company claims there is no evidence that additional bus services are needed.
The company have suggested an alternative agreement under which they would carry out bus stop, cycleway and footway improvements costing £85,000.
But members of the borough council’s development management committee felt the company had already not kept to the original agreement they had with the council.
Shops and a community centre which were part of the original scheme had not been built
A report to the borough council’s development management committee stated that since the original planning consent for the development, the number of houses proposed has reduced from 485 to 424.
The committee was asked to delegate authority to officers to negotiate an agreement by which the developer would carry out the improvements to bus stops, cycleways and footpaths instead of the contribution to the cost of bus services.
But councillors said the company should go back and provide more financial details in time for the next meeting when their application would again be considered.
Picture for illustrative purposes
Sceptical councillors probe housing scheme
22 Comments
2 Comments
So Morris homes are offering £85.000 instead of the £800,000 (5 x £160,00) plus the Community Centre and shops, which was the original agreement. What a joke!
You wouldn’t have needed a crystal ball to have foreseen what would eventually happen. I think whoever even suggested making that original agreement with them should have been sacked for incompetence. How many times have developers already made these ‘deals’ and then broken them?
Instead of trying to get funding to support Network Warrington they should have insisted on a portion of social rented housing and a medical centre and also insisted that these as well as the Community Centre and shops were built BEFORE any of the profit making elements of the scheme.
Morris homes excuse is; “Company bosses claim “abnormal” costs associated with the site have made the scheme unviable in today’s market conditions”
Answer to that one = “Tough! get yourselves some better surveyors and advisors”.
Could you imagine the response WBC would give to any businesses in town that said ” Due to our own faulty predictions we have not made the massive profits we had hoped for so will offer you less than 10% of what we agreed in business rates” ?
Any eventual “deal” that is made on this scheme, yet another shambles with a developer, must be absolutely open and transparent to the people of Warrington. That is in terms of the real meaning of the phrase and not WBC’s sanitised version of it. So many times we have been told that lessons have been learned yet we continue to see examples of developers evading their responsibilities and never under one pretext or another being held to the terms of the agreements on which planning approvals have been granted.
Furthermore, any “deal” that is made must be made by the councillors and not delegated to officers (against whom the electorate has no redress) to “negotiate” some form of settlement.
I entirely agree with SHA Morris Homes should be made to adhere to the precise terms of the original consent. No IFs or BUTs, or the usual WBC fudge.