How Essex betrayed its residents

24 February 2010

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Ross Clark on a supposedly ‘model’ Tory authority which has, behind the scenes, left elderly homeowners to suffer at the hands of private contractors

But if I were an Essex council taxpayer neither of these would bother me quite so much as the treatment that the council has meted out to residents in Colchester. It’s a salutary tale — of the interaction between the council, a private company contracted to build a major road, and the elderly residents whose lives were disrupted by it.

Roads, of course, have to be built, even though they are never going to be welcomed by everyone. But once the protests have finished and Swampy has moved on, there is a clearly laid-down procedure for compensating property owners who have suffered. Under the Land Compensation Act 1973 such homeowners can, 12 months after the completion of the road, claim from the relevant highway authority a sum based on the diminution in the value of their homes. The same applies for new airports, railways and other public building works. Seven years after the Colchester Northern Approach Road was completed, the men and women who live next to it are still waiting. Though their view is gone and their houses devalued, the county council has done nothing but try to wriggle out of paying compensation by hiding behind the contractor which built the road.

The road saga began with a public-private deal that Essex signed with Cofton Homes. Cofton, a developer which specialised in large regeneration projects, was granted permission to build a large estate on the northern edge of Colchester. But under a section 106 agreement (named after the clause in the Town and Country Planning Act which enables councils to make planning permission conditional on payments toward infrastructure improvements), Cofton was asked to build the Northern Approach Road, to speed traffic from the A12 to the town centre. As part of the deal Cofton was supposed to make the compensation payments to residents — in spite of the Act making it quite clear that it is the council which is responsible for paying the money. In 2006, 57 residents received a letter offering them sums between £5,000 and £25,000. But the developer failed to make the payments. Then, in February 2009, the company collapsed into administration. The council says that Cofton indemnified the council against claims, and paid a £500,000 bond to cover the compensation costs, but cannot explain what has happened to this money and why it cannot be accessed now. Outside Notting Hill, conservatism becomes a whole lot less compassionate.

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Stuart Seacole Smith

March 8th, 2010 2:23pm Report this comment

Sad stuff. Tea and biscuit type stinginess will always come back to haunt by way of lost goodwill, and end up costing way more than the tea and biscuits ever could have. Failing to cough up on house-value reduction deals (which let's face it is always going to represent poor recompense for the suffering that goes with it) is immeasurably worse. That will come back to bite hard, and deservedly so.

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