As residents will be aware, our roads are not in a particularly good state and whilst many of the roads are only a few months old, they look more like they have been built for over 10 years. We have sunken drains, sunken paving, damaged and poorly laid paving, pooling of water, weed growth and general poor workmanship.
We have been pushing Bellway for months about this and despite being promised snagging action plans, we have only received the odd brief verbal update and no evidence of any tangible corrective action.
In early June we made available to both Bellway and our City Councillor (from a planning perspective), a large set of photo examples which were representative (although not exhaustive) of the issues we are facing. In our opinion the ‘finish’ of the roads is absolutely unacceptable and not to the required standard for a new development such as Channels.
Bellway no longer have anyone full time on site and we have serious concerns that we will end up in the middle of protracted arguments between them and Highways whilst our roads are left in a sorry state. We have asked our City Councillor to support in pushing Bellway to appropriately comply with planning requirements and to finish the development to an acceptable standard and the City Council are keeping a watching brief on how things are progressing.
You will have probably noticed that there are sporadic remedial highways works being undertaken across the development and we have been advised that Bellway are currently reviewing all remaining works with Barcon in advance of walking the site with the Essex Highways Clerk of Works. This is an important milestone as it will flag any further action required to meet Highways adoptable standards.
The intention from Bellway remains to obtain sign off from Essex Highways by the end of July/beginning of August however given the extent of the issues that we picked up versus the current rate of remedial works being undertaken, it is very unlikely this deadline will be met.
It is important to note that at present Bellway are wholly responsible for all highways including repairs, upkeep and general maintenance and we will continue to push them, with the support of the City Council, to ensure our roads are of the requisite standard and in line with planning requirements.
Andrew Wright
Channels Residents Community Group
Channels Community 