Trumpington residents said the developer, who remains responsible for the roads, has been ‘very very slow’ to fix broken lights
Cambridge residents fear their safety may be at risk after delays in fixing broken streetlights in a new development has left streets “completely dark at night”. Clay Farm and Glebe Farm saw their first homes occupied more than a decade ago, but residents report ongoing issues with road management.
Central to their concerns is that responsibility for the roads still lies with developer Vistry, not Cambridgeshire County Council, as they remain unadopted. Residents on the Trumpington estates have reported issues with parking enforcement and long delays for repairing street lights.
Dr Kevin O’Brien has lived on Clay Farm since 2016, but said that since then they’ve got no closer to road adoption. The 56-year-old said the developer, who sub-contracts much of the road management, has not taken responsibility for the roads.
He said: “In the summer of 2023, a whole series of lights went out – both street and pathway lights – and it has been an ongoing battle to get these things fixed.”
He said three years on, some lights have finally been fixed – only for new ones to go out. Dr O’Brien even tried to get the police involved due to safety concerns, but was told they couldn’t do anything as the roads are privately owned.
He said: “There are complete blackspots where you can’t see anything. The police have had a major push to combat violence against women and girls – and one of the concerns around violence against women and girls is poor lighting and dangerous streets. There’s an enormous amount of frustration as a home-buyer – you buy into a new development, get all these promises of how it’s going to be brilliant, and then left in these rabbit holes from all of these issues.”
David Plank, a Glebe Farm resident and member of the Trumpington Residents’ Association, said the developer had been “very very slow to attend” to the lighting issues.
The 82-year-old said: “There are significant street lighting problems in the new developments with lights not working. A very significant number of street lights on Glebe Farm are not working and the developer is being very very slow to attend to it. There are safety issues apart from anything else.
“It really is a scandal that more than ten years on none of the roads in those two developments have been adopted. It leads to difficulties for residents actually getting problems sorted out and it can be an obstacle to selling your house if people see the roads aren’t adopted.”
Cllr Olaf Hauk, of Trumpington, raised a motion at last month’s Cambridge City Council meeting to highlight the issues residents face on estates with unadopted roads.
The Liberal Democrat councillor said: “As a resident of a new development, you encounter broken street lights and street furniture, missing or confusing signage, uncertainty over parking rules. If there is something weird and it don’t look good, who are you going to call? Well you don’t know because you don’t know who owns the place.
“And sometimes it really feels like we are hunting ghosts. Some streets are completely dark at night because streetlights have not been fixed. The fundamental problem is that public services are expected to be publicly accountable.
“Residents on these estates pay exactly the same council tax as everyone else in Cambridge. Yet often they receive fewer public services because essential infrastructure remains in private hands.”
A spokesperson for Vistry said they have done a survey of the lighting infrastructure across the development and started work to fix them.
They said: “The works are now underway and will be carried out over the coming weeks. We recognise the frustration experienced by some residents and are committed to improving the reliability of the lighting network across the site. We will continue to work with relevant stakeholders as the programme progresses.”
A spokesperson for Cambridgeshire County Council said developers can offer roads up for public adoption but they do not have powers to mandate this.
They said: “As such, it is not possible at this time to suggest when these roads may be adopted. However, the council has been in dialogue with the developers throughout the design and construction phases of these developments.
“We approved the design of the streets and we have inspected the works throughout the entire construction period. The Council therefore remains content, in principle, to adopt the internal roads within Clay Farm and Glebe Farm once all technical and legal requirements have been fulfilled by the developer.”
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