Permission granted to demolish 88 newbuilds

A total of 88 newly built properties at the development will be demolished

More than 80 newbuild homes at a development on the edge of Cambridge will be demolished.

Developers have been given permission by councillors to bulldoze 88 properties - some fully and some partially constructed - at the Darwin Green site.

It was a rise from the last report which said 36 newly built houses would have to be knocked down due to faulty foundations.

Barratt and David Wilson Homes Cambridgeshire said they were "working hard to rectify this situation".

A spokesman said: "36 homes currently at the roof stage of construction are scheduled for demolition and in addition to this, remediation will be undertaken on a further 47 plots, each at different stages of partial construction."

Problems with the foundations of some properties built in the second phase of the development, known as BDW2, were raised back in June.

At the time, the developer said a “small number” of houses had foundation issues, but no one had moved into any of the affected properties.

The developer said the faults were found during quality assurance checks

A report published by Cambridge City Council this week said "the applicant advised that they would need to demolish eight eight (88) built and partially built structures due to foundation issues".

Councillors agreed the demolition work could take place during a meeting of the city council and South Cambridgeshire District Council’s joint development control committee on Tuesday.

The meeting heard the work was expected to take 12 weeks to complete.

The developer has fenced off the houses set for demolition

A representative of the developer told councillors the faults were found during quality assurance checks earlier this year.

“Whilst this is a rare circumstance, the application before you today will enable us to demolish the affected properties to allow us to rebuild to the correct foundations and deliver much needed housing," they said.

“We will be implementing a comprehensive series of measures to mitigate the impacts of noise, dust, and vibration throughout the duration of the works.”

'Depressing'

Some of the measures proposed by the developer have included putting up a seven metre fence between the houses that needed to be demolished and the houses that people were already living in.

The meeting heard that no demolition work was due to take place at the weekend.

Liberal Democrat councillor Katie Porrer said the proposals to demolish the new homes was a “depressing thing to come before the committee”.

However, she said she was pleased to see progress being made to demolish the affected properties and to rebuild them.

The committee voted unanimously in favour of demolition.