The state of the estate - another update

Hi everyone, I wanted to quickly update you on a couple of things that have happened since I last posted an update about this issue.  Thanks again to those who were able to comment or provide information on their experience with Miller Homes- it's been really useful to have this information when dealing with both them and Chorley Council.

After speaking with both Miller Homes and Chorley Council last week I found out that they were meeting on Tuesday afternoon to review the list of issues that Simon Forster of Chorley Council had identified and those that I had sent on our behalf.  So, I took an hour off work and with Kath Almond from the Parish Council I went to their meeting.

As it stands, Miller Homes are still responsible for the common areas of the estate such as the grass, pond and play area. There is an interesting plan of the estate (supplied by the Council) that shows the areas that Miller are responsible for, these will eventually become adopted by Chorley and the aim is to do this in the next couple of months.

It's fair to say that from the beginning of the meeting Miller Homes were keen to try to start putting things right. I suspect this is influenced in part by their desire to see the adoption completed in the next couple of months (which can't happen until the list of issues is resolved) but David Ratcliffe from Miller Homes came across as positive, helpful and pragmatic.

Before I met them I noticed that on Tuesday morning the grass had been cut on the strip next to the railway and around the children's play area and the trees and bushes in this area were being trimmed and tidied. I'm told that from now on the grass will be cut about every two weeks and the bushes trimmed as needed (but obviously not in the winter!) Hopefully with the drier, warmer weather promised for next week this will encourage the street football to move to the grassed area and away from the roads.

We walked around the estate and went through the list of points I have written about before, covered the emptying of the bin beside the play area (which will be emptied when the grass is cut) and discussed the points relating to the pond. In the main these are in the process of being dealt with and will be completed before the end of the month.

However there are still a couple of points that I raised which need to be cleared up by Miller as part of the adoption process. The first relates to the pond which I'm told is supposed to be a managed wild area that has minimal maintenance and the second is the ownership of the railing that run parallel to numbers 41 to 33 and 43 to 7 Jubilee Way as well as those that also border the pond area.  Miller Homes has committed to provide me with a copy of the pond management plan which should give us more information on how the pond should be looked after (I'll post it when I get it) as well as a response on the points some of you raised about this area. The ownership of the railings needs some input from Miller's legal team and they agreed to get in touch with me about this as quickly as they can.

So, that's about all I have on this for now, I'll update again when I have more information on the adoption process.

Mike