For the last 4 months we have been having to put up with much disruption from Rowland Homes as they are constructing a new 25 house development very near to our house.  There has been lots of noise and disruption but most of all there has been a massive safety risk due to the way that the site has handled the delivery of materials and the general running of things.  Let me explain.

I have had many people say what do you expect when you move onto a new housing estate, surely you are to expect there to be some disruption and upset.  Usually I would agree with them there, but the thing is, is that this is not the builder that constructed out property.  When all the residents moved into this location we were all assured by Bryant Homes that they would be nothing being developed on a patch of land near to our homes.  Yet 12 months down the line we hear that Rowland Homes had planning permission and work would start after Christmas.  Being lied to like this was very disappointing.

During the planning of this small development from Rowland Homes access to the site was clearly not considered enough.  The only access to the site now is through an already completed phase of the Bryant Estate which is just narrow residential roads.  These are roads that have parked cars on them, kids playing in the street and all sorts of other hazards that clearly are going to play a massive health and safety role in the consideration of access to a site.  Quite how the council have approved this to be safe is beyond me.

Anyway to top it all the safety standards set out by Rowland Homes themselves on their safety board outside the development are clearly not being adhered to at all.  Take point number 10 on the safety board, which is also clearly highlighted with a key blue square on the board to – “No vehicles to be reversed without a banksman”. This clearly does not happen at all.  I have several photos and video footage of this not happening.  With children playing in the streets and so many parked cars around (as well as other trucks around parked outside our homes) this is highly dangerous and not conforming to the health and safety policy that was laid out by Rowland Homes themselves in a discussion with local residents a few months ago.

As you can see from the Photos below lorries are clearly using residential roads and space in order to unload bricks, roof tiles and other materials.  Yesterday we had a forklift truck zooming around the residential roads (very dangerous in my opinion) with no banks man present at all, loading and unloading palettes of what looked like roof tiles.  On more than one occasion these ended up blocking peoples driveways.

All in all I am disgusted with Rowland Homes and the way in which they have run this development.  The residents of the area, although not happy that the new development was going ahead, accepted this some time ago with the hope that Rowland Homes could run the site safely and efficiently.  This is clearly not happening and at the moment the evidence presented here suggested that Rowland Homes are not adhering to basic health and safety rules and Rowland Homes are not true to their word by carrying out their operations to the guidelines that they stated, both by word of mouth to the residents and on the written safety information signs that they display at their sites.

We all look forward to what the council and health and safety excecutive will have to say about the lack of consideration for health and safety by Rowland Homes at this development.

About 2 months before Christmas it became clear that the derelict land that was next door but one to our house was going to be development by Roland Homes.  Since then the whole thing has been a nightmare and it has brought to my attention the terrible way in which Rowland Homes have gone about working with the local residents in order to keep disruption to a minimum.

Work started back in late October 2008 when the company were preparing the site for development of around 22 4 and 5 bed homes we are led to believe.  The company had large lorries ( and by large I mean really large!) coming down a residential road that leads to around 20 homes.  As you can imagine the width of the road is not wide and there are usually cars parked down the side of the road and often children playing on bikes and other toys.  Lorries were coming down at speeds in excess of 30 mph which was incredibly dangerous.  As I wrote late last year in the post entitled “What A Day” the disruption has been horrendous.

First of all the staff that Rowland have working for them are most unpleasant and have not taken into account the disruption that is being caused to the residents.  On that day back in August several of them were verbally offensive towards 1 or 2 of the residents, swearing at them and also making rude hand gestures.

Also at this time we were ensured by the director of Rowland Homes himself that every time lorries were turning in and around the entrance to the new development and around all of the houses and cars belonging to the residents, a banks-man would be used in order to safely direct the lorry into position.  I would say that this happens about 30% of the time.  You can see in the video above, there is no banks-man present.

Well today the situation was getting back to the same again hence the reason why I am motivated to write this blog post.  A delivery wagon came along the road with what I assume were breeze blocks for building with and parked right across the front of mine a next doors drive ways.  He could easily have parked across the other side of the road where there are no driveways or better still pulled into the development and unloaded there, but no they had to cover our driveway.  This prompted a call to Rowland Homes and we were told that this would be actioned.  Sure enought 10 minuntes later the lorry was moved.

It is just disappointing, that although this development is going to happen, Rowland Homes have gone about it in a poor way, blaming any problems on the tradesman that they are contracting out and not taking responsibility for what is happening.  I don’t think that develops a good company image, but maybe that is just me.