Council 'not to blame' for highway compensation delay

More than four years on, it’s yet to be paid

Devon County Council has insisted that they are not to blame for the failure to pay compensation claims to residents whose homes have ‘reduced in value’ since the South Devon Highway opened.

The new expressway between Torquay and Newton Abbot opened in December 2015 - ending the long queues of traffic through Kingskerswell.

Affected residents are entitled to receive compensation under the Land Compensation Act.

They were told that they would receive their claims within five years of the road opening, but more than four years on, it’s yet to be paid.

But speaking at last Thursday’s Devon County Council meeting, Cllr John Hart, leader of the council, said that the delays were down to the agents who were handling the claims on behalf of the residents, some of who were not based in the area and had not submitted all the claims.

Cllr Hart, who had been asked to give a verbal report on the latest with the claims for compensation, said: “Some agents have yet to submit all the claims, so it makes it difficult to assess all the claims.”

He said that there had been 50 duplicate claims and 24 invalid claims in the process, but of those, 14 may be entitled to compensation under different legislation and that they will be invited to fill in different forms.

He added: “We have been waiting for information from the consultants. This is not of our making but the consultants making. We have told our agents that this has to be gotten on with we need to give those agents a kick up the backside.

“The message is doing blame the County Council for the delays. A lot of the issues are with the people who are handling the claims on behalf of the residents.”

Cllr Alistair Dewhirst, who represents the Ipplepen & The Kerswells ward, said that when the road was being constructed, he advised people to go with local companies to handle the claim on their behalf.

He added: “This is not local companies who are holding this up but the people who have gone to the companies in other parts of the country who are not pulling their weight, and it is they, not the council, who are causing the problem.”

Cllr Gordon Hook added that there was extreme frustration for the residents in his Newton Abbot South ward because they were promised action in five years, but four and a half years have gone by and don’t seem to be getting compensation or see anything happening.

He said: “It is a poor show that now some of them asked to provide more information or the agent’s haven’t collected enough information. It seems unacceptable to me. Will the settlements be completed in the timescale of the five years?” he asked.

Cllr Hart said he had urged the agents to get on with the process and it was not the council who were holding anything up.

More than 800 residents had initially submitted claims, although only 270 of them were eligible for the Part 1 claims, councillors had previously been told.

Since the South Devon Highway opened in 2015, results from air quality monitoring in Kingskerswell have shown that Nitrogen Dioxide levels have fallen, and locations where the levels were exceeding the national objective now fall within it.