Blocked drains during estate’s six-year wait
EARLIER this year, the issue of adoption was put into stark relief when it was revealed that an estate in neighbouring Chorley is yet to have its roads adopted after more than six years.
Duxbury Manor resident Lindsay Hill said she and her neighbours are still waiting.
“The road outside our house is still broken and in need of repair and the blocked drain is still blocked.
“The new estate at the front of [the overall development] is now finished and the road has been completed at the entrance, so there is no reason why it can’t be adopted,” Lindsay said.
The situation facing the Duxbury Manor residents was complicated by the fact that the developer has since gone into administration.
Lancashire County Council was approached for an update on when the roads within the estate might be adopted.
Almost 550 applications for adoption are being processed in the county, and the authority deals with 5,000 inquiries from developers about adoption every year.
But before it will adopt a road, highways bosses have to be satisfied that it meets the standard which they set for the rest of the road network in the county.
That includes ensuring that work above and below the surface is up to scratch – including the need to provide proper drainage of surface water from new developments.
Legal agreements with statutory drainage authorities need to be in place before a road can be adopted – and drainage issues are one of the most common delays during the adoption process, county councillors were told.
Neil Stevens, highways development control manager at Lancashire County Council, said the authority has a good relationship with developers.
But he added that house builders were sometimes too slow to consider the requirements of adoption at the start of the planning process – and too quick to move on when the final houses are completed.
“[At the planning stage], a lot of developers don’t want to provide [the necessary] level of detail – it’s expenditure for them when there is no permission yet in place. [Their proposal] may come with a very pretty plan, but that might not be the final layout.”