Neighbours in Car Standoff With Alleged ‘Bully’ Property Developer

Residents of a quiet village cul-de-sac are embroiled in a parking dispute with developers over plans for a housing estate on land behind their homes.

Angry neighbours living beside the proposed development say they are leaving their vehicles outside their properties to prevent builders and construction equipment from gaining access.

Developer Owl Properties says it has a legal right to enter the land from Pippin Walk in Drakes Broughton, Worcestershire, but residents have so far declined requests to move their cars.

Homeowners and social housing tenants in the area have accused the firm of “bullying and intimidation” and say they are determined not to back down.

People living next to the proposed 30-home development have been told not to park at the entrance to the site, although they say they have nowhere else to leave their vehicles.

Geraldine Price, 70, a disabled NHS administrator, said she and her husband Alan, 75, a retired labourer, could lose the gravel and grass frontage of the bungalow where they have lived for three years if access is granted.

“It’s a nightmare for anyone who enjoys the peace and quiet of living around here,” she told the Daily Mail. “We face the prospect of never being able to open our front sitting room windows and losing the pavement and gravel frontage at the side of our home to make way for widening the road.”

“The housing association and the developer have been knocking on our doors and telling us to move our cars which have always been legitimately parked outside our homes since we signed our tenancy agreement.”

‘The bullying tactics have upset us and made us feel really upset. The idea of having cars and people going by inches from our front window is horrendous. It’s not just about privacy but genuine fears about health and safety.’

The row started after an independent landowner sold the field earmarked for development to Owl Properties.

The deal included a legally recognised easement agreement believed to have existed since 2017 when housing provider Sanctuary bought a separate development site which Pippin Walk is now part of.

Builder Martin Huxley, 49, who has rented his home in the cul-de-sac from Sanctuary for nearly four years, said tenants and private owners should have been told about the easement agreement when they moved on to the estate.

‘Most of the houses were empty round here when I moved in and Sanctuary have been telling us the roads and pavements would be completed and adopted by the local authority ever since but nothing has been done.

‘Owl had a road access point on the other side of the field in Stonebow Road turned down by the planning authority so now they are trying to use our cul-de-sac instead.

‘The first thing the people living here knew anything about an easement agreement was a few months ago when representatives from Sanctuary and Owl started visiting homes and telling people they would have to move their cars because this was going to be the only access to the new housing estate.

‘Since then, some elderly and disabled residents have been told to park on gravel right at the end of the road which have just been marked out with yellow paint.

‘I have an autistic son and there’s a lady living in the road with a disabled daughter but no one is taking into account how we are going to manage when traffic and building vehicles start using it.

‘Some residents are going to be losing part of their house frontages and even some are having drain covers moved from the road into their gardens.

‘Being approached out of the blue and told you no longer have the right to park outside your own home has felt really intimidating.’

Mr Huxley is now chairing a newly formed residents’ association to fight Owl Properties’ plans to use the access and has even discussed asking the developer to sell them the land.

‘It just seems like we’ve been bull-dozed into accepting this which some residents even feel is possibly because we are housing association tenants rather than private owners and don’t deserve a proper consultation,’ he said.

Retired school worker Tracy Price, 61, told how some residents felt betrayed by the housing association.

‘I’m a blue badge holder and use a walker because of my arthritis so living in a quiet little road where no vehicles come up and down is perfect for me,’ she said.

‘I chose to live in a cul-de-sac after moving from the main road in Drakes Broughton because I didn’t want to worry about congestion and traffic. It feels like this has been a fait accompli.’

A homeowner, who did not want to be named, has parked next to the development access site since she moved in three years ago and said it was ‘ridiculous’ to increase traffic in a narrow road without any consideration of safety.

‘If 30 houses are proposed, there could be 60 vehicles coming and going within a few centimetres of our homes,’ she said.

‘And that’s not even taking into account the aggregate and building disruption we are going to have to put up with over the next year. I’m not moving my car.’

A spokesperson for Sanctuary said: ‘The development being accessed via Pippin Walk is not a Sanctuary site and the decision to approve the access route was taken by the Local Planning Authority.

‘While we have asked residents of Pippin Walk to ensure the road is kept clear in line with the developer’s legal right to enter their site, and to protect emergency vehicle access, we are not proposing legal action in relation to this matter unless a further review is required in the future.’

Owl Properties said the developer would not be commenting on the matter.

And a spokesman for Wychavon District Council, which granted the development plans, also declined to comment – citing how the situation was a ‘land dispute and not a planning issue’.