I’ve mentioned before that there is a snicket (an alleyway) in the north east corner of the Bovis development on the site of Ickneild School (also known as King Alfred’s East Site) between the development and Charlton Road.

Initially this alleyway was just a rough sloping footpath which used to be used by the school children from the school, but as the development progressed, Bovis turned the slope into a level footpath with steps at the end.

This wasn’t the accessible footpath that everyone was expecting when the development was given permission so the developers submitted a retrospective planning application almost a year ago to get approval for the steps.

Now 11 months later, revised plans have been submitted which say that
“the steps at the Charlton Road end of the footpath will be removed and the footpath itself re-graded to a gentle slope that [will be] suitable for use by users of wheelchairs and mobility scooters, and people with prams and buggies. Safety barriers will also be installed at each end of the footpath.”

So everything is great isn’t it?

Well not quite.

The application goes on to suggest that “construction of the footpath shall be completed and open to the public no later than 18 months from the approval [of the application]”.

Therein lies a potential problem.

The whole site was granted approval in May 2018 and development started almost immediately.

Almost all of the new homes have now been completed and the developers are expected to leave the site within the next 6 months.

There is a strong chance that ‘out of sight’ will become ‘out of mind’ and the changes to the snicket will get forgotten.

So why will it take 18 months?

According to the application, it could take 6 months to get ‘party wall consent’ because it is possible that one or both of the adjacent home owners do not give their consent to the works and there is a dispute that needs to be resolved.

Surely they could be starting discussions now?

It could then take three months to organise a subcontractor and then another three months to do the work. And of course there has to be a contingency of another 6 months.

I’m sure we would all be happier if the works were done before the developers left the site so that they could check that everything is completed satisfactorily.