My questions are as follows:
1. Playground near school
- I believe the playground that was installed was never fit for purpose with poor quality and poorly chosen equipment which has inevitably broken/ become difficult to maintain. I believe the developer should be rectifying this. There needs to be more equipment suitable for under 10s and particularly the age 5-8 age group who are the most ardent users.
- The playground is frequently left unsafe . Recently the metal bits of the temporary metal fence around the removed roundabout were falling off leaving metal stakes all over the ground.
- There is no soft landing near the weird circular climbing item. The ground is frequently muddy leaving the play item covered in mud and making it more unsafe.
2. General responsiveness
- if I report an issue I get no acknowledgement or update from Remus.
- What is the process and SLA for when we raise an issue.
3. Path by school fields
- an example where the development plan is not working in practice. This green path just means it cannot be used for 9 months of year and 6 weeks when it can be used, the school is closed. It would significantly help walking to school if this path was an all weather path and that can be used all year.
4. Lack of safe crossings
- Homington Avenue is dangerous to cross especially with children and buggies. The speed and the parking means there is no safe crossing anywhere.
5. Advertising signs on shared land
- do persimmon pay rent to put their large advertising signs on land managed by the management company and is it enough to justify it?
- Who will be responsible for the removal of signs and rectifying damage to the ground?
- Are there plans to subsidise the management charge by accepting other advertising signs? Do these need planning permission?
6. Polesdon avenue green area / stones area
- Another example where the development plan is not working for residents.
- This has left an open space without any valuable use.
- I would like to see barriers put up to stop children running from this green area out onto Homington Avenue and some small play equipment added similar to the willow house, snail and sheep that are between Ashcombe and Ilford Close. My boy loves these items and they add character to the estate. Maybe we could add some different animals here to create an animal search challenge.
- I highly suspect the same applies to the green area at the bend of Homington Avenue and also the one near Bushton Close.
- an example where the development plan has no logic. Stops where logically no one would wait has shelters. Other really popular stops have no shelters (eg coate village and Rainscombe Road).
- There is no path or hard standing next to Rainscombe Road bus stop meaninh people have to step onto slippy mud in inclement weather.
8. Resident directors
- when appoint them? What support will be provided as based on current experience I would not expect many takers!
9. Subsidence
- several paths and roads within the estate have cracks and ridges and slopes. This feels like it should be resolved by the developer. If in areas already adopted then I would challenge the adoption quality process which appeared to exclude residents refusing to even share the list of defects.
10. Suds and sound barriers
- there are items which I would not expect to come under a management arrangement and are not listed as items but appear to not have clear ownership, this is unacceptable as a risk to the residents and needs to be sorted.
11. Litter bins next to benches
- another example of where the development plan does not work in practical terms. Having the bins so close to the benches can make the benches unusable due to smell, insects etc attracted by the bins.
12. Slopes by water courses
- some of these worry me. I don’t like my 5 year old getting too close to them. Eg the one on Biddestone Avenue near Lordswood bus stop.
- What risk assessment has been done? Some of the water areas have warning signs, some don’t and only 1-2 have life rings, why the inconsistency? Are the life rings sited at the riskiest water courses or is it just random? (It looks random).
13. Broken fencing in Wilbury Close
- this feels like a design flaw as it seems as if the wood is rotting away from the metal supports
- This is the third one that has broken in a few years.
14. Trees
- we still have dead trees around the estate. The handover did not seem to take this into account or replaced them with poor quality trees with no plan to water them.
15. Very few flower beds
- it would be nice to have more colour on the development with daffodils or other bright flowers.