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New estate roads 'left unfinished two years on'

Olivia Richwaldin Featherstone
BBC A group of six people stand in a road chatting, new houses are behind them. BBC
Residents of Wilson Street, Featherstone, discuss the state of their roads

Homeowners on a new estate in West Yorkshire say they have been left with unfinished roads and no streetlights - two years after moving in.

Residents of Wilson Street in Featherstone say the builder tried to dissolve his company before laying their road, connecting lights and fixing a range of snagging issues with their homes.

Local MP Jon Trickett said he was trying to help and was aware of similar "shocking" allegations at other developments in the area.

LMW Development Solutions, which built the homes in Featherstone, has not responded to the BBC's requests for an interview.

A road covered in rubble and holes
The unfinished road at the main entrance to the estate on Wilson Street

Wilson Street is a development of 20 homes, sold for up to £220,000 in 2023 and 2024, on the site of a former supermarket near the centre of the town.

Homeowners said they were promised a premium finish by LMW Development Solutions, but the road has never been completed, leaving raised ironworks which have caused damage to cars.

Karl Rafferty said he had to get a new car after about £5,000 of damage was caused to the underside of his vehicle when he hit one of the drain covers.

“The number of people who have had puncture issues, or suspension issues, it is not just me that has had damage to their car and it is not on really," he said.

Rafferty added that the unfinished road was just one of a host of problems he had faced with his new home.

“We have had plumbing issues, scratched windows, we have had our front door has dropped twice and they have patched it up," he said.

“But it has gone again and it is pulling the plaster away."

A woman with blonde hair is wearing a black baby sling. You can just see the side of the baby’s head inside the sling asleep.
Vicky McEvoy, who recently had a baby, said her home was plagued by smells due to a poorly-fitted toilet

New mum Vicky McEvoy said her family could not use the downstairs toilet in their home because it blocked easily.

When the developer failed to help her, she contacted a plumber who said it was becoming blocked because the waste pipe had been laid too flat.

She said: “It is just storage for the baby stuff at the minute but I still have to keep going in and flushing it every now and again because it is still water that is in there and it stinks.

“You can smell it as soon as you walk into the house sometimes."

A double drain cover is higher than the surrounding road. There is a slope all the way around the drain cover to the road. It looks like a mini hill.
One of the raised drain covers in Wilson Street which residents said were damaging vehicles

Trickett, the Labour MP for Normanton and Hemsworth, said he had met residents from Wilson Street and it was one of three different new estates, built by different companies, which had not been properly finished within his constituency.

He said: “That involves dozens of families - it is shocking.

“If you take money by building houses and selling them, you should respect those people and put the road surface down and fix the sewers.

“I am taking it up with the developers.

“I am writing to them and they need to watch out because if they don’t do what they are required to do, I will be taking further action and so will the local residents.

“We are not going to accept people being left like that.”

Tyllar Mellor The sun is shining on a window which is badly scratched. You can see a house behind the window.Tyllar Mellor
Some of the windows of the houses in Wilson Street were badly scratched when residents moved in

Residents have also discovered a request was made to “strike off” LMW Development Solutions at Companies House which, if approved, meant the company would have been dissolved.

Following objections from the homeowners and an intervention by Trickett the process has been suspended.

BBC Yorkshire tried to contact the two directors of the company, John Joseph Watts and Anthony Logan, but we have not had a response.

Often local councils adopt the roads in new-build estates when they are finished, but this has not happened in this case.

Joe Jenkinson, of Wakefield Council, said: “This situation is entirely down to the actions of the developer.

“We completely share residents’ frustrations and will continue to explore all options for ensuring the completion of the road surfacing.”

Tyllar Mellor, who moved into his house in Wilson Street two years ago, said: “It should be somewhere where my daughter can run around and enjoy her time and somewhere we can just relax and come home after work and really enjoy spending time with each other and our neighbours.

"Recently we have had to spend our evenings fighting for what we are owed and it is not right, no-one should have to go through that."

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