Call to stop ‘scandalous’ annual fees for newbuild home buyers

​Legislation should be introduced to tackle the “scandal” of property developers charging residents exorbitant fees for roads that have not been adopted by local authorities, according to Cllr Tom Seston.

​The Reform councillor, who represents Eastfield on North Yorkshire Council, said residents in his division “were originally told it would take two or three years before the roads would be adopted, which has now turned into five or six years and they still haven’t; meanwhile, the maintenance fees for some residents have gone from £200 a year to £440 a year”.

​Speaking at a recent meeting of the Scarborough and Whitby Area Committee, Labour’s Cllr Liz Colling said similar issues had been reported in her Falsgrave and Stepney ward and said it was “disgraceful” that developers were charging residents.

​Last year, the Home Builders Federation revealed that on new housing developments of 10 or more units built over the last three years, just 10 per cent of sites had had the roads adopted.

​The HBF said that the non-adoption of public amenities on new housing estates was an “increasingly significant and complex problem in the UK housing market”.

​When local authorities are invited to adopt roads, the costs for maintaining the roads and streetlights are usually incorporated into council tax bills, while residents on unadopted estates often have to pay annual fees to management companies.

​The federation added: “A growing number of housing estates are being left with unadopted amenities, creating complications for developers, local authorities, and, most critically, the residents themselves who face increased costs and added frustration.”

Scarborough And Whitby Area Committee 05.06.26

​Speaking at the council meeting last week, Cllr Seston highlighted that he had “raised this at full council and the short answer was that the council won’t adopt the roads until it’s invited to do so”.

​Calling for national-level attention of the issue, he added: “If you’re charging £440 a year and you’ve got twenty or so houses, you’re getting about £10,000 a year to realistically do some light gardening.

​“There are some firms making quite a lot of money off this, and equally, some of them haven’t raised their fees, while some of them had more than doubled their fees. It is a scandal in a way.”

​Alison Hume, the MP for Scarborough and Whitby, said she was eager to work on the issue with Cllr Seston.

​She told the meeting: “It won’t surprise you to know that the issue of unadopted roads has been brought to the Government’s attention by many, many MPs, including myself.

​“I would be interested in working with you on this issue, because we have a group of MPs working on the unadopted roads and pressuring the government to move on this, as we are aware.”