9. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to ensure that builders complete housing estates to a satisfactory standard? OQ57327

Builders are responsible for ensuring that new homes comply with the building regulations. The Building Safety Bill will set out clear responsibilities for compliance and provide a means of redress where things go wrong.

Thank you, Minister. It's become apparent to me that there aren't adequate measures in place to tackle the huge problem that exists as some builders fail to complete housing estates to a satisfactory standard. In a number of cases, where someone buys a house under the mistaken impression that infrastructure such as pavements, streetlights and roads will be completed once all the houses in the estate have been built, they are being left to live in dangerous living conditions for years, if not forever. Local authorities say that they don't have the power to take action in this area, whilst the Welsh Government claims that it's a matter for local planning authorities, and this injustice is even worse in cases where management for building is outsourced to private companies. In these cases, the local planning authorities don't do any research or enforcement work when clearly deficient work is done. So, will the Welsh Government hold an inquiry into this issue in order to ensure that nobody has to live in unsafe conditions? Thank you.

Thank you, That's a mix of a couple of things. My colleague Hefin David has been talking about the issue of connecting estates and the estate management charges that sometimes are left with home owners as a result for quite some time. This continues to be a real problem, because it's something that's negotiated between the developer and the local authority, through either a highways agreement, a section—I forget; 328, I think it is, but don't quote me—one of the sections of the Highways Act 1980 that connects the highway together, or indeed a section 106 planning agreement, which puts obligations on the developers. Local authorities then often adopt those roads and take them over as part of their statutory network, but they don't have to do that, and it's a matter of negotiation between the local authority and the developer as to what, if any, connection is made to that estate.

We've already held a number of task and finish groups into both the issue about unadopted roads and uncompleted estates, and we've had a look at some of the outcomes of those. They are incredibly complex. Unadopted roads come in all shapes and sizes across Wales. Many house owners live on an unadopted road. I should declare an interest, Deputy Presiding Officer, and say I live on one myself and am very happy to do so. I don't want the road to be adopted by anybody and it's not causing a problem. Other householders live on unadopted roads and estates where they have to pay a management fee for that and there are very draconic terms and conditions when they buy those houses for what happens if you don't pay the fees. As I say, Hefin David has brought this to my attention on a number of occasions.

We are working very hard as part of our Building Safety Bill to put a series of very specific obligations on both constructors, developers and management companies for who will have responsibility for what going forward. That doesn't solve the problem of right now. We've been working very hard with local authorities to ensure that they do negotiate the 106 agreements so that the responsibility transfers and that the developer puts the right sort of what's called a commuted sum into the pot to pay for the ongoing maintenance of that, but there's no doubt that it's a problem, and it's an ongoing one. We are working very hard, and I'm very happy to discuss with any Member the problems with this. As I say, I've discussed them many times with Hefin David. We are working very hard with the UK Government at the moment on the leasehold reform Bill, but these houses fall between, so they are freehold houses, but they have almost leasehold-like provisions on the estate management. So, we hope that that will be part of the reform that we bring forward; if it isn't, then we will legislate here in Wales to do it.

Thank you, Minister and Deputy Minister.