Developer builds 6,000 homes but backtracks on pledge to contribute to new school and roads
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/29/developer-builds-6000-homes-backtracks-money-schools-kent/
Posted by cornishpirate32
Developer builds 6,000 homes but backtracks on pledge to contribute to new school and roads
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/29/developer-builds-6000-homes-backtracks-money-schools-kent/
Posted by cornishpirate32
22 Comments
Commitments like this should be legal, binding, enforceable and punishable with a jail term.
Developers up to tricks all day long and know how to worm their way through the council.
Assume these are 400K homes, that is 2.4 BILLION gross – assume it cost somewhere in the region of 1000 million to build the homes – thats nearly 1.5 BILLION in profit. I think they can afford the 100 million for improvement of public infrastructure. Developers are a scourge.
Developers often had a sweetheart deal with Tory councils : submit plans with n% of affordable housing; get planning permission; start project then say oops due to x it is less financially viable (profitable) than we thought; submit a lesser number of affordable housing units. Rinse, repeat. In this case the council must carry out legal repercussions on developer.
This always happens which is why developers need to be forced to build the infrastructure, be it park, school, surgery *first* before any housing.
This behaviour from the developer should lead to refusal of all future planning permission for them, they have shown they are utterly unreliable.
Building some flat pack shite slums again then to over charge for.
It shouldn’t even be the responsibility of private companies to build this sort of infrastructure anyway.
The government needs to stop offloading its responsibilities to private companies.
They still build the housing though, which is a good thing anyway.
Sounds like the council should be getting 6000 new council houses for free then.
We need new houses. It’s the government’s job to provide schooling and transport infrastructure.
A developer not living up to its commitments? Shurley shome mishtake …
Can they ? What is the legal consequence? If it sets a precedent, other developers will see similar commitments a joke.
The council should take action to rescind the planning permission since the developers broke the legally binding agreement.
Give them a reasonable period of time to rectify it and do what they agreed to or remove the illegal development (like they would do with an individual who violated planning laws). I’d even suggest some blacklist so the company and all people connected to the management of it are never allowed to get planning permission ever again.
Developers seem to think they can get away with this now and it needs to stop.
Must be a slow news day, this happens all of the time
Don’t know how many times it has to be said, developers aren’t in the housebuilding business they are in the money making business.. and the bigger ones have shareholders to satisfy, profit quotas to meet each project
Frankly, the housing crisis is so bad, I don’t care.
We can fix that shit later. But if tens of thousands of families are able to move house, that’s good enough for now.
Should be legally binding, confiscate some of the properties, theyll find the money soon enough.
Sounds like Trump with the golf course in Scotland. Promised to invest £1bn, including building hundreds of new homes, a school, and to create 1000s of new jobs but all that has materialised is a golf course valued at £33.2m with 81 employees and which has racked up a £13m loss.
Unless the council follows through and forces the company to honour the contract then this will just keep happening and undermine the growth and progress we need.
“It’s not financially viable.” They say, well tough shit, you shouldn’t have signed the contract saving you’d do it. I guess you’re doing as much as you can then going bankrupt bro.
If I sign a contract with a business you bet they won’t let me just back out when I feel like it, neither should these bigger companies get to rinse the country.
Don’t grant them permission next time.
They’re cartels. They think they can do what they like
This, and the fact it’s hideous, is why people are NIMBYs. Build the infrastructure first and build beautiful (thanks Angela Rayner for abolishing that) and most of NIMBYism will melt away
This, and the fact it’s hideous, is why people are NIMBYs. Build the infrastructure first and build beautiful (thanks Angela Rayner for abolishing that) and most of NIMBYism will melt away
What a surprise…. NOT..
They have been doing this shit for decades now and so far not one Government has done anything about it.
The solution is really fucking simple, they have to make their contributions BEFORE building ANY properties.
Absolute scumbags – Thomas Steven Hudson and his father Derekhave hundreds of millions in assets, and they pull shit like this.