Officers from the relevant authorities have been invited to attend the meeting to explain their role in the adoption process and answer questions of the Group:
· Chorley Council
· Lancashire County Council
· United Utilities
Minutes:
Rachel Crompton – Development Support Manager
Rachel explained that she was new in post and that the service was changing its focus by supporting development. It was recognised that that there was limited public funds and they want developers to build in Lancashire. Ms Crompton also explained that she had previously been a Public Realm Officer covering the South Ribble area so she was aware of all the issues that both Councils faced on the adoption of estates.
In response to the Groups concerns about highways officers not being available for site inspections and there being constant changes to snagging lists. Rachel was concerned to hear that this criticism had repeatedly come through from developers and whilst accepting that improvements could be made, wanted to point out that they did have a legal requirement of 28 days and sometimes the developers expectations were set too high. A developer would be quiet for a long time, and then expect the highways officer to be available at a moment’s notice.
Ms Crompton was in the process of developing a small team of site based staff that would be able to react more readily to this type of work. It was envisaged that this would help to standardise the process and build up the experience of highways officers.
It was also explained that sometimes remedial lists needed adding to for different reasons such as seasonal changes that had identified particular issues on the highway or motoring accidents that had impacted on structure. A decision was always made as to what was reasonably deemed the responsibility of the both the highways authority and the developer before it was added to the remedial works list.
Ms Crompton was of the opinion that the main trunk road needed to be adopted first, followed by the roads that branched off it and did not share the view of officer from Northamptonshire that this could be done the other way round or in a piecemeal fashion whereby a section of the trunk road would be adopted with associated roads, a section at a time. The reason given for this was that they would only adopt a highway that did not link to their existing highway’s network; otherwise a developer could challenge the use of their road.
Ms Crompton did not really understand the developer’s request around the flexibility of the bond amounts as they already implemented a phased process which reductions being given after Part 1 and Part 2 completion stages. Members explained that it was mainly around the starting figure for the bond that developers felt where to high and were querying the amounts the highways authorities calculated for certain works to be carried out being much higher than the actual costs.
Ms Crompton explained that their calculations had to factor in many additional costs that the developer did not consider, for example health and safety issues. The Council needed to be certain that the bond would cover their costs of construction if needed and not how much the developer thought they could do it for at that actual moment in time.
The Group did have some concerns about how the issues and frustrations of residents were being communicated to the relevant portfolio holder on the Executive Cabinet for Lancashire County Council as there did not seem to be a reporting structure in place for this. Members queried how improvements could be addressed if the Cabinet was unaware of the problem.
Ms Crompton concluded by extending her willingness to work together with Chorley on the issues surrounding adoption and thought that they could assist by sharing their intelligence about developments across the borough.
The Chair thanked Ms Crompton for her contribution to the review.