21 ‘unadopted’ roads in Ballymoney area

‘Unadopted’ roads are often left unsurfaced and without street lights because they were due to be finished by developers who have gone bust.

The issue has been raised at Ballymoney Council where Councillor Evelyne Robinson (DUP) asked the Chief Executive John Dempsey to obtain details of “21 roads in the Ballymoney Borough which are currently unadopted”.

Cllr Mervyn Storey (DUP) raised the issue of housing estates which are not fully developed and estate roads not finished, in some cases due to the developer being in receivership.

He raised questions on the number of ‘bonds’ outstanding and sought clarity on where responsibility for the bond lies in such circumstances and what action central government has taken or is available for the department to take.

The Council agreed to write to the Department of Regional Development.

Meanwhile, Ballymoney Council has received correspondence from NILGA, the Northern Ireland Local Government Association.

A report prepared for councillors said: ‘NILGA has recently been made aware of a procedure in place within DRD to deal with unadopted roads and members have requested that the Regional Development Committee is furnished with details of this procedure to further inform their inquiry.

‘NILGA is led to believe that: Divisional Roads Services Offices maintain a backlog list of roads not adopted within their area and used to call to mind all unadopted roads. Roads are added to this backlog list under two conditions: When a site is 80 per cent occupied and Roads Service has not received a Preliminary Certificate of Adoption; Where a Preliminary Certificate has been received but after 18 months a Final Certificate of Completion has not been received.

‘Procedure * - Roads Service will first try to persuade the developer to undertake works.

* If this is unsuccessful, Roads Servide will issue an Article 11 Notice, which gives the developer 28 days’ notice to commence works.