PEOPLE living in some of Exeter’s hundreds of new homes are facing poor service and rocketing costs for the basic maintenance of their roads and parks.

Now Exeter City Council has pledged to get tough with rogue developers who leave roads unfinished and parks untended.

Cllr Mollie Miller-Boam (Lab, Pinhoe) said homeowners were faced with a ‘broken system’ that was costing them in some cases thousands of pounds a year.

The full council voted unanimously to beef up the planning system to force developers to keep their promises and to be transparent about their charges.

Cllr Miller-Boam went on: “We have seen far too many residents being let down by these companies with poor service, rising charges, and very few options to hold anyone to account.

“Problems range from simple things such as grass not being mowed regularly to residents being billed thousands of pounds a year for services like dog waste bins or facing sudden and unexplained price hikes.”

She said all too often the costs were not made clear to residents when they bought their homes, and even when bills arrived, many people had no idea where the money was being spent.

Stronger policies were needed at national level, she said, praising work done on the issue by Exeter’s Labour MP Steve Race.

Cllr Josie Parkhouse (Lab, Pennsylvania) said her ward had a park owned by a development company which was poorly maintained and where the lighting hadn’t worked for years, and Cllr Paul Knott (Lab, Exwick) had a similar story.

He said on one road in Exwick the ironworks were sticking up an average of 15cm above the road surface, and had been for two and a half years during which time the service charges had increased four times. Some people were paying more in service charges than they were in council tax.

Cllr Ruth Williams (Lab, Mincinglake and Whipton) said the current system was ‘fundamentally unfair’ while Cllr Liz Pole (Lab, Mincinclake and Whipton) said it was ‘a prime example of the privatisation of profit and the socialisation of losses’.

The motion was proposed by Cllr Duncan Wood (Lab, Pinhoe). He told the meeting: “This is about fairness, clarity and long-term security for residents,

“More and more people are buying homes on new developments where roads, green spaces and play areas are maintained by private management companies rather than the relevant council.

“Many residents only discover this after they move in, when they are faced with rising charges, poor service, and very limited ways to challenge the decisions that affect their daily lives.”