Why councils take so long to adopt housing estates

There are calls for residents in south Oxfordshire, who have faced lengthy delays in having their housing estates adopted by the council, to receive a reduction in council tax.

Four years after the last new home was sold on Great Western Park, in Didcot, responsibility for things like the roads and streetlights have still not been adopted by the council.

Conservative councillor Ian Snowdon said the delays meant some people had paid full council tax for 15 years without receiving essential council services.

Oxfordshire County Council said it "continues to work closely" with the developer - Taylor Wimpey - "to progress with works and road adoption" on the estate.

A spokesperson for Taylor Wimpey described the adoption process as "complex" and said, given the scale of the development, the "full adoption of the roads, sewers and public open spaces... was always expected to take several years."

Part of the complexities are that a local authority will only adopt things like the roads if they are in good condition, so the council does not need to spend more money to repair them.

In Oxfordshire, the two-tier system of local government also complicates things, with Didcot Town Council, South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District Councils and Oxfordshire County Council all needing to adopted different responsibilities.

But for Snowdon, who represents a ward on the estate, it has now taken too long and says a deadline needs to be set, beyond which residents should receive a 20 per cent discount on their council tax.

"Then you'll see real progress," he said.

The county council says such a reduction is not possible, with UK residents "legally required to pay council tax if they own a domestic property." This does not depend on if an estate, street or road has yet to be adopted or if it is privately maintained.

For Jim Sayers, who has lived on the northern part of the estate for almost six years, the adoption cannot come soon enough.

He says he enjoys living there, describing it as "beautifully designed," but problems with flooding on the main road out of the development, as well as not having access to a promised park and allotment, makes things frustrating.

Sayers said: "We have a park that has been fenced off since it was created and the public has no access to it. Why are we still waiting for it?"

While some parts of the development have been adopted by the local authorities, including the community centre and sports hub, the developer still retains ownership and responsibility for the highways, footpaths and skate park.

Councillor Tony Worgan, deputy leader of South Oxfordshire District Council, said there were "one or two technicalities on the site" that needed fixing before the authority would take responsibility, but "we're making sure they are put right in order that we don't have an ongoing cost for residents".