This story highlights the fact that the house builders will build absolutely anywhere. Extreme care needs to be taken when buying new homes on these so-called brown field sites. You really need to do your homework to find out what that land was used for.

Amazingly, even though the authorities knew about the nature of the lake, planning permission was granted for a modern housing estate to be built on a tip next to the poisoned body of water in 2003.

Last night one worried father, whose house sits on the edge of the toxic mere, said: “We feel we have been lied to by everyone, and everybody round here is very angry about it.

“At no stage did Barratt homes tell us anything about what was buried in that lake and when we came to visit there were no hazardous waste signs on the main gate as there are now.

“Not only do we face financial ruin because we will never be able to sell the house, but our garden literally backs onto the lake so we are terrified for the health of our young children.”

Read more about the poisonous lake

I was just writing about issues with parking on a new build estate in Devon and how developers try to maximise the number of units on a site by minimising parking and play areas etc. If residents are lucky the local council will intervene to ensure that certain features are required to get planning consent. However, this doesn’t mean the builders actually meet the requirements set by the builders. We know the builders are not afraid of flouting the law to maximise profits and here is an example of Barratt Homes not providing a play area:

Children have no safe place to play because their parents say a housing development has been left without its promised play area. Installing a play area was part of the planning conditions for the Barratt Homes development at Lady Beam Court in Kelly Bray.
But more than two years after moving in, residents are still waiting for the facility. Sean Milne, who lives at the Lady Beam Court development with his wife and four children, said he bought a house on the back of the plans.
‘We thought there would be a play area and now all we’ve been left with is an empty, muddy field,’ he said.

Read more over at the Cornish Times.

New home developers hire specialist planning consultants and designers that aim to maximise the profitability of every planned development by ensuring that the housing density is a high as possible. This impacts on many aspects of a development that make living there more enjoyable such as open spaces, play areas and the like. However, the one that causes the most problems with residents is the lack of parking. Visit any new build estate at the weekend when everybody is at home and people are entertaining visitors you will see what I mean.

I read this article earlier about a Barratt Homes estate where the residents are putting “polite notices” on cars stating that the road is private so visitors cannot park there. Although this is technically correct, it would be private for long and once the council has adopted it anybody can park there.

Here is the article:

]Estate agents Whitton and Laing have waded in over a row over parking at Norman Crescent.

Recently residents were being warned off becoming vigilante traffic wardens by cops after two drivers found notes on their parked cars saying the road was private.

Read more about this parking problem.

Bolton Council has successfully taken action against Barratt Homes who have been fined £5,400 for flyposting in the Bolton area. The builder was given ample opportunity to take down the illegal posters but failed resulting in the local council taking action.

Obviously, the builder sees this fine as being insignificant compared to the advertising and marketing benefits it gets from these unsightly adverts that they plastered all lampposts around the Bolton estate. As it is not the first time the builder has been fined for fly posting.

Their scant regard for the law in this area does make you wonder about their attitude to the law in other areas such as the building regulations. Quite a scary thought really.

Read more about it in the Bolton Evening News:

A PROPERTY developer has been fined £5,400 and ordered to pay £1,190 costs for illegally fly posting on lampposts in Bolton.

Bolton Council brought the case against Barratt Manchester Ltd which trades as Barratt Homes.

The company pleaded guilty to nine offences of displaying unlawful advertisements during a hearing at Bolton Magistrates Court on Tuesday.

The developer was fined £600 for each offence under Section 224 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

Court fines property firm £5,400 for illegal posters

Newhomeblogs.co.uk our sister site has been much unloved over that last few months, so we have given it some tender loving care and are now looking for new bloggers. If you are buying a new build home and would like to blog about your experiences then head over the new home blogs. We would love to hear your story whether it is Barratt Homes, Persimmon Home or Crest Nicholson.

A leading housebuilder has launched an investigation into how one of its homes was turned into a deathtrap by damaged electrical wiring.

Darren Korol suffered 230-volt shocks when he touched the cooker in his new £220,000 Barratt Homes. flat in Crawley, West Sussex.

The 41-year-old print salesman’s children suffered jolts from the bathroom taps.

An electrician later discovered that the fitter who installed the stove had screwed through a live cable. The error raises fresh safety fears over household appliances. About 20 people a year are killed by electrocution in the home.

Homebuyers hoping to move into a new central Watford development before Christmas may not get the keys to their new flats until June.

Covered in white plastic sheeting, construction work at the Queensgate development in Loates Lane has stagnated while the building standing next to it, named The Pulse, has reached completion – despite starting after its neighbour.

The development began under the control of Kings Oak North London, but the company was taken over by Barratt Homes in April.

Subsequently, the new owners found the development did not meet its required standards.

Are Barratt Homes trying to kill people in Thornbury in their quest to build more homes?

They have erected a security fence with plastic shuttering to protect prying eyes from their building site at the junction of Upper Bath Road and Rock Street.

This has created an extremely dangerous situation for vehicles trying to exit Upper Bath Road and turn right towards the town. They have to edge out across half the carriageway to enable the driver to have a clear view of the oncoming traffic.

Barratt have not even completed the first house on the estate the are working on at Newbiggin by the Sea in Northumberland but already have the residents of the only access road up in arms.

Somehow they were granted planning permission to build 44 houses on a small plot of land just behind the Front Street, it is surrounded on all 4 sides by houses, there is no viable access as the obvious access is owned by somebody who is determined not to sell it.
I am trying to highlight the problems of the residents who are trying to exist while Barratts do their worst.

A letter was placed through our front door saying building sites are dangerous for children and support us in keeping them from entering, disruption will be encountered and the road to Manor View is difficult for delivery wagons to gain access your assistance will be appreciated.

This letter should read keep out of the way Barratts are here at whatever cost to you, your lives will have to revolve around what we want. It is a requirement of planning permission that wheel washing facilities be provided on site, I have been on to the council who eventually agreed in November that mud had been a problem but had now been rectified by more regular road cleaning. The road sweeper does come round at least once towards the end of their shift but this does not remove the heavy mud caked onto the road nor does it do anything for the pavements which are covered in several inches of mud where the wagons drive over, nor does it do anything for the places where the sweeper cannot get because they have wagons parked. The sweeper would come round, and leave the roads wet then we had a couple of frosts which meant that the roads were dangerous for people like myself who have problems walking the woman at the council told me that as the Christmas holiday was coming up we would have two weeks without them. I had to contact the council again after Christmas about the state of the roads and a man from Highways said it was not too bad after all there was a lot of work to be done and a lot of vehicles need access, WHAT ABOUT THE RESIDENTS WHO ARE TRYING TO EXIST THROUGH IT ALL? A young mother cannot always get her pushchair out because the workmen insist on having their cars right outside the site which of course means residents cannot park their cars, there is a good empty car park not two minutes walk away and I told the site foreman but he said he would ask if some men could park elsewhere but nothing has changed.

I have written to Barratt head office at the same time as I wrote to the council, they have not even had the good manners to acknowledge it never mind reply, unfortunatly I did not keep a copy as it was hand written.

In summer 2005 I moved into my present flat. It is a so called new build, built by a well-known company, that, for arguments sake, we shall call Barratt. I am neither advising people to stay away from such properties, nor advocating them, but here is one of the problems I’ve had with this developer.

Front door handle put together with wrong parts. Ended up locked out of my home, and had to wait over an hour for a Barratt workman to arrive, who turned up drunk. He then ‘fixed’ the problem with a piece of cardboard from my bin . The job wasn’t properly corrected for nearly a week, during which time the handle failed again (luckily as I was on my way out). At present the front door handle at least works, although it appears to be slowly coming apart. Barratt Homes