A NEWBUILD estate has been left abandoned for seven years – all because of a row over a very expensive wall.
A planning stalemate led to the fully completed, in a Cornish village being boarded up and left empty.
in Bridge View, Calstock, had planning permission granted in 2018.
Parish councillor Dorothy Kirk called it a ”; tragic situation where everybody loses”;.
One of the directors behind the development claimed his firm had put aside £2.8m for 15 s but council delays cost them £1.2m.
He accused the council of “weaponizing”; planning agreements and blocking the sale of finished houses.
The additional costs included the requirement of building a more complicated drainage system, a second road, and a large retaining wall priced at around £750,000.
In turn the council said it has “done all in its power to work with the company”;.
As of January 2024, there were 160 households on the waiting list for homes in the parish.
Cllr Kirk told the BBC: “We have to find a solution. I don’t want Calstock to be deprived of homes, I don’t want to see the developer lose everything. We have to have houses for local people.”;
Cornwall Council said it was “committed to working with developers that have been granted planning permission to ensure that a housing development, and the agreed number of affordable housing homes, are delivered in line with the planning permission”;.
It is understood to be reviewing a revised planning application for the site.
Another has been dubbed a “horrendous chalk scar”;.
Disgruntled locals have slammed the developers who went bust and expressed fears the area of “scenic beauty”;, in, could become a “ghost town”;.
There deserted site, on Folkestone Road, has 29 empty new builds.
And ill-fated construction work has left a huge band of chalk exposed on the landscape.
