As many of you know, your Parish Council has been very proactive in trying to reverse the Management Company arrangements at Hunts Grove – it is one of the reasons residents voted to create the council at the Community Governance Review consultation in 2019.
I just wanted to provide you with an end-of-year update on progress during 2022 as it has been slow and many of the steps we have taken could not be communicated in-depth as we do not wish to jeopardise the process or discussions with stakeholders.
This update is for all residents of Hunts Grove, many of which have joined us in the last year, so please forgive me if I am going over old ground.
This is a lot of text to tell even part of this story, so apologies for that.
I’ll start with the latest updates. If you are new to this topic, or new to the village, you will likely need a little more background, so head on further down to the section headed “Background”.
2022
We Started a Petition!
We started 2022 with a petition on change.org calling for the management company to be abolished:
Our motivation for starting the petition was to demonstrate to Crest and other stakeholders the continued support from residents to hand over the maintenance of the village to the Parish Council for the reasons outlined in the campaign. 591 residents have signed that petition. Have you added your support?
Take a look at the petition page as there is more detail and FAQs in the updates.
We Set a Budget
Your council had a lot of ideas for 2022 including holding events for the Platinum Jubilee and raising money for projects around the village. We also knew that the village management strategy would need extra resources this year to start building a maintenance reserve fund and a legal fund for professional advice.
Feb 2022: We Researched and Appointed Solicitors
Cranbrook Town Council stands as a case study for a council successfully replacing a management company on a new development. Cranbrook has a lot of similarities to Hunts Grove in that it is a brand-new village and council. Cranbrook Town Council has been very helpful in sharing their experience, plus through them, we were able to talk with legal advisors that were working on that case. We decided early on that the most effective approach would be to use the same team and benefit from that experience. We appointed Stephens Scown LLP as our advisors.
April 2022: Our Solicitors Wrote to Crest Nicholson
Stephens Scown LLP wrote to then Managing Director Ralph Hawkins at Crest Nicholson South-West confirming the position of Hunts Grove Parish Council and outlining points of discussion. This letter also outlined how homeowners could be released from the rentcharge mechanisms in their deeds in an easy and low-cost way, a key step towards the transition from a management company. This letter was also sent to Stroud District Council planning department and also the landowner at Hunts Grove, Colethrop Farm Limited.
June 2022: More Support and a Letter to Stroud District Council Chief Executive
In June we wrote a letter requesting the support of Stroud District Council to resolve the management company issues at Hunts Grove.
The letter was sent to Kathy O’Leary, the Chief Executive. The letter was supported and countersigned by Siobhan Baillie MP, the Member of Parliament for Stroud, Cllr Stephen Davies, Gloucestershire County Councillor, and Cllr Gill Oxley, Stroud District Councillor.
June 2022: HGPC Prepares Discussion Documents
In June we prepared three draft discussion documents. The first outlined our understanding of the positions of the parties to the existing legal agreements, the second outline the future framework and “One Hunts Grove” strategy of HGPC, and finally a pragmatic 5-year transition plan from Management Company to Parish Council.
As discussion documents, we consider these very much a work in progress which will need to be adjusted as options and ideas come forward in discussions. We have not published these documents at this stage, however, will seek to do so for residents as soon as possible.
Sept 2022: Letter of Support from Colethrop Farm Limited
In September we received a letter of support from Colethrop Farm Limited (CFL), the landowner at Hunts Grove. This is a significant boost to our campaign as CFL is one of the parties to the legal agreements concerning the management of open spaces and amenities, plus CFL will retain ownership in the future whether managed by the management company or Parish Council.
Nov 2022: Stroud District Council Host Talks
On the 23rd of November, Stroud District Council Chief Executive Kathy O’Leary hosted and led a meeting including District Council senior leadership officers, planning officers, Crest Nicholson South-West Managing Director (Mark Foyle) and Hunts Grove Parish Council Vice-Chair, Demelza Turner-Wilkes, and Chairman, Mark Ryder.
The District Council are keen to encourage all stakeholders to work towards an agreement that respects the views of the residents of Hunts Grove. Any change to the current arrangements will require the support of all of the parties to the current legal agreements, that is, Crest Nicholson, Stroud District Council, and Colethrop Farm Limited (the landowner at Hunts Grove).
The Parish Council had already outlined its “One Hunts Grove” strategy earlier in the year by circulating three discussion documents:
- an Understanding of the current positions of the parties;
- Ideas for the future framework, and;
- a proposed five-year transition plan. Hunts Grove Parish Council has received the confirmed support of the District Council and Colethrop Farm Limited to date.
Crest Nicholson has always kept the door open for discussions with the Parish Council to understand residents’ views and the council’s vision for the future management of open spaces and amenities. Mr Foyle is new in the position of Managing Director and is getting up-to-speed with the status of discussions. He confirmed the willingness of Crest Nicholson to explore options and get more into the detail of the legal commitments.
The Parish Council had shared the outcome of its legal advisors earlier in the year. Mr Foyle confirmed that Crest Nicholson had also sought initial legal advice on the proposals. The high-level summary of this is that it appears there are a number of potential complications in changing the current arrangements with the management company.
All agreed that Crest Nicholson and Hunts Grove Parish Council needed to share the advice received from their legal advisors in order to prepare for a further meeting. It was agreed to share this within December 2022.
Further, it seems most productive that legal advisors are prepared and be present at the next meeting. Stroud District Council confirmed it will also have a legal representative present at the next meeting, as did Hunts Grove Parish Council and Crest Nicholson. The next meeting is to be an in-person meeting hosted at Ebley Mill, Stroud District Council on January 30th, 2023.
Dec 2022: Shared Legal Advice
Further to the November 23rd meeting, the parish council shared its legal advice with Crest Nicholson at the end of December. In addition, we have reviewed the deeds of properties in Phase 2 and Phase 3 in order to provide redacted examples for our legal team to prepare issues/options/ideas for the January 30th meeting.
In Conclusion
Whilst we haven’t been able to communicate a lot regarding this topic over 2022, I hope that you can see that this remains a primary task for your council to resolve and a lot has been going on behind the scenes.
Your councillors remain positive that we will deliver on our “One Hunts Grove” strategy eventually; the alternative is a village split three different ways, managed by an agent in Peterborough that is taking substantial profit/fees and limited local control of the cost and quality of the upkeep of our village. The Parish Council is a non-profit organisation obviously, therefore councillors remain convinced that management company residents will be paying substantially less, and all residents will be able to contribute fairly within their council tax.
We sincerely hope that Crest Nicholson adopts a can-do approach in making this happen, however even if these talks fail, the management company will at some point be in the control of residents. If the issues remain the same at that future point, the residents and Parish Council can explore winding up the management company.
In the interim, unfortunately, the sacrifice is that the Parish Council has had to withdraw its commitment to adopt the Phase 1 parks, open spaces and Hunts Grove Wood until such time we have confidence that Phase 2-4 will also be under the management of the Parish Council.
We are very mindful of the fact that without that agreement, all residents will be paying for Phase 1 maintenance within their council tax, however, only some residents will be liable for the management company service charges. This is not something we can agree to. Our aim remains “One Hunts Grove”, eliminating the management company service charges, all residents having equal access to all amenities, and all contributing equally and fairly.
If you have any questions, do feel free to write to us at clerk@huntsgrove-pc.gov.uk and we will be pleased to provide additional details.
Cllr Mark Ryder
HGPC Chairman
District Councillor for Hardwicke Ward
Background
This story starts back in 2017 when Crest Nicholson received approval from the planning department for major changes to the ownership and management of parks, open spaces, and amenities such as planned allotments and community centre. Planning Variation S.15/1498/VAR
The original strategy approved for Hunts Grove back in 2009/2010 was for all of the above to be adopted by the local authority (District Council or potentially Parish Council) and locally managed within the council tax budget. This is known as a Section-106 agreement, which also provided up to £1.9 million contribution from the developer to cover up to 10 years of maintenance of the transferred assets.
This was overturned in September 2017 with a planning variation whereby Crest Nicholson proposed a management company for Hunts Grove that would lease the assets rather than own them. Instead of assets being adopted by the local authority, they would be managed and maintained by the management company and paid for by an extra annual “service charge” charged to each property. Whilst residents would automatically become members of the “Hunts Grove Management Company Limited”, all control would only be with Crest Nicholson through their holding of “golden shares” in the company. Crest Nicholson can retain this power for as long as they choose, however, it is envisaged that once all building work is complete, they would release their control to the residents. On current projections, this is some 10-15 years away.
Hunts Grove Management Company Limited (HGMCL) has appointed Preim Limited (based in Peterborough) as a managing agent to actually run the company and provide services on-site. The contract between HGMCL (Crest) and Preim guarantees Preim an “agents fee” of £77.95 + VAT per property per year – this is before any services are provided! Read more on Preim here > https://www.huntsgrove-pc.gov.uk/preim-limited.php
Councillors have reviewed the management company account summary for the year ended March 2022 and this shows that residents were charged £83,123 in total. Of this amount, only £7,467 was spent on providing services. Preim took £37,942 in agents fees for the year.
The campaign against the imposition of a management company started as soon as residents found out about it in 2017. Unfortunately, this was too late to have any voice or representation at the planning variation application. At this point in the development, only 346 homes had been constructed which was all Phase 1 of the village. A residents association was formed to represent residents at discussions with Crest Nicholson and others, plus ensure residents were kept up-to-date with the status of discussions.
Residents strongly objected to the management company proposals and over the next 12 months, the discussions focussed on whether they should be forced to join or whether other arrangements could be made.
Side Note: Rentcharge / Restrictive Covenants in Property Deeds
The power to enforce residents’ service charge payments and other liabilities is established in the property deeds through a Rentcharge – this is a complex legal matter, and as we found out from later research, provides the Rentcharge owner powerful rights even though you may have purchased a freehold property, such as the right to charge any annual service charge fee they choose, no legal control on the services provided or the quality of that service, no ombudsman or consumer rights, the right to prevent the sale of your property if they deem you are in dispute, the right to enter your property, the right to charge any fees they set for changing names on deeds, for sales packs, for other administration, etc.
Whilst these rights seem concerning and perhaps only used in extreme circumstances, Parish Councillors are aware of the sales of many properties at Hunts Grove being held up due to complications with the management company and rentcharge provisions in the deeds. As an example, one recent case we are aware of is a property where the sale was delayed by several months due to the management company being unresponsive and the homeowner owing 80p on their account. Just to be clear, if the Parish Council is successful in this campaign, homeowners should be released from all of the restrictive covenants in their deeds. This is being explored currently with our legal team.
Back to the Campaign
So, after several months we reach 2018 and both Crest Nicholson and the residents association (HGRA) understand that it will be very difficult to convince all the existing residents to join the management company voluntarily (why would you!). In addition, the legal mechanism for enforcing this (the rentcharge provisions in the deeds) was implemented inconsistently across Phase 1 properties. The residents association received more than 20 sets of deeds from residents and practically none were the same, even though only two developers were selling homes, Crest Nicholson and David Wilson Homes. Some deeds were only 4 pages, and others we checked were 30-40 pages. Whilst these issues complicated matters, we then found a factor that would eventually settle the matter – the legal boundaries of the planning variation.
On studying the planning variation (Section-73 variation) approved in September 2017, it was apparent that the agreement only covered the land for Phase 2-4 of Hunts Grove, therefore the residents association considered that it would be illegal to retrospectively change the planning permission (i.e. the 2008-2009 planning permission) that applied to those properties. This required a legal opinion and the residents association had no funds of its own to check that. The then Crest Nicholson Managing Director, Andrew Dobson was very helpful in paying for a legal opinion on the matter. On 20 February 2018, the legal firm DAC Beechcroft confirmed that the ownership and management of the open spaces on Phase 1 remains with Crest Nicholson until such time they transfer it to the council. Copy on our website at https://www.huntsgrove-pc.gov.uk/documents/220115-001445-89-Hunts-Grove-Legal-Advicepdf.pdf
2018: The Campaign Continues
Once the matter of Phase 1 residents had been settled, our thoughts turned to the future residents of Phase 2-4 that would be liable to pay a management company, and even though there were no residents there yet, we felt equally strongly that this was not a good or cost-efficient way forward for maintenance of the village.
At this stage, there was no Hunts Grove Parish. The village was split down the middle between Haresfield Parish and Hardwicke Parish.
Ultimately, three of the founders of the residents association became Parish Councillors at Hardwicke to represent Hunts Grove residents’ interests there, and that then led to a campaign to form a Hunts Grove Parish Council which received a record level of responses and support from residents. Two primary reasons came out of that campaign, (1) Taxes raised in Hunts Grove should be spent and benefit Hunts Grove (the previous situation meant that Hunts Grove council tax parish precept was benefitting Hardwicke village, not Hunts Grove), and (2) that a parish council that covered the whole of Hunts Grove could be the future non-profit organisation to locally manage and maintain the open spaces and amenities.
A lot happened in between, but I won’t bore you with even more details!
This update is provided for information purposes only. The contents should not be considered as any legal position or advice from Hunts Grove Parish Council. If in any doubt about your deeds, contracts, and liabilities, please seek independent advice.