The problem of new developments taking ages to be ‘adopted’ (for maintenance by the County Council) is shown up by what residents of Hazeldene Close at the eastern edge of the village have had to put up with for at least 10 years. We have had to live all that time under the regime of Taylor Wimpey who built the site. This has meant that it was Taylor Wimpey who we had to persuade to fix the street lights and mow the verges, and it was they who were responsible for the cleaning and maintenance of the roads. To confuse us even more, the other parts of our site (like the meadow and the woodland) were and still are our responsibility, for which we pay a fee to a management company.
Struggling to find out who does what, we found out that Oxfordshire County Council was not prepared to adopt the site unless Taylor Wimpey brought it up to a certain standard; and Taylor Wimpey were clearly not keen on spending their money doing this.
Negotiations dragged on and on, until much to our surprise we discovered recently that the adoption had taken place last autumn – but no one had told us! Even more surprising, six months after this happened a WODC sweeper lorry appeared and swept our roads! Well, we are happy now, but still a bit miffed that no-one told us what was happening and why.
Further Reading