Homes with hole load of problems
NEW ESTATE BUILDER BLASTED
THIS little elephant takes a dip wearing a prosthetic foot as his big buddy looks on.
Chhouk was found starving and close to death after losing his leg in a poacher’s snare in Cambodia.
Ten years on he is the star of a wildlife centre in Phnom Tamao where experts fitted his foot.
Rescuer Nick Marx said
Chhouk loves it so much he gets angry without it. “He ran around within minutes of trying on the new shoe,” said Nick.
FAMILIES have been left in a hole amid claims of shoddy workmanship at a housing estate built by Persimmon.
A crater 4ft deep and 10ft long opened up in a path between homes and the swollen River Dearne, West Yorks, amid last week’s storm.
Furious residents say they had urged the developer to strengthen the riverbank but nothing was done.
Barry Nuckley said a woman fell in the hole but luckily avoided landing in the river. “Had she fallen down completely, she would be dead,” he said. “There’s no way she’d have got out of the river because it was so high.
“It had washed away the soil under the footpath to create a void.”
Carpet fitter Mr Nuckley, 54, and wife Ruth, 49, say they have spent £20,000 fixing faults such as leaky windows and bad plastering since buying their £233,000 four-bed home near Huddersfield five years ago. “It looks like Noddy and Big Ears have built it, it’s absolutely bonkers,” he said.
Persimmon built the path as part of landscaping to protect homes from flooding when they put up the Oxley Park estate in 2013.
Neighbour Brian Cartwright, 70, said: “Persimmon have known about the problems since we lived here. They promised to repair it and nothing happened.”
It is the latest in a series of alleged defects in Persimmon homes.
The firm – blasted for paying its former boss a £75million bonus – is due to announce that it made more than £1billion in profits last year.
In December, an independent review criticised it for having a corporate culture that
resulted in “poor workmanship” and “potentially unsafe” houses.
Around half of Persimmon homes are sold through the Help to Buy scheme which has been criticised for boosting builders’ profits while lifting house prices further out of reach of young buyers.
Latest figures show more than £1.5billion of taxpayer-backed loans have been used to buy 34,000 Persimmon homes since 2013.
Former chief executive Jeff Fairburn, 54, was ousted in 2018 following a backlash over his £75million bonus. Successor David Jenkinson, 51, got £25million in 2018.
Persimmon said: “We are aware that a portion of the footpath adjacent to the River Dearne has collapsed.
“Oxley Park management company is responsible for maintenance of this footpath. We visited the site with them today and are in touch to see if we can offer any short-term assistance.
“We are pleased to hear they are urgently looking into a solution.”