When Britain’s biggest council moved into property development to make money, its advertising slogan invited buyers to ‘find your happy place.’
The website of Brierley Homes still boasts: ‘We pride ourselves on delivering high quality homes that our customers are proud to own.’
But for many purchasers the process of buying a house built by the council-owned company has proved a very unhappy experience.
While taxpayers in North Yorkshire who have funded the controversial venture will doubtless be distressed to discover that so far it has cost millions of pounds in public money rather than produce big profits as was originally intended.
One local told MailOnline: ‘This was supposed to be my happy home but it’s the most unhappy and distressing period of my life.’
The website of Brierley Homes (pictured) boasts ‘We pride ourselves on delivering high quality homes that our customers are proud to own’
Colin Sinclair, 69, (pictured) and wife Gillian, 60, bought their three-bedroom home for £325,000 and are so fed with a series of disasters they are selling up
For many purchasers the process of buying a house built by the council-owned company has proved a very unhappy experience. Pictured: One of the houses in Woodleigh close had a bath put in with a shower but no taps to run a bath
The horror stories from buyers of Brierley Homes have included:
- Taking a first bath only to see water plunge down into the kitchen below when the plug was pulled as the drainage pipe wasn’t connected.
- A split pipe sending water cascading into his kitchen on the first day.
- Gardens with no drainage flooded whenever it rained heavily and became a boggy mess.
- Roofs leaked and weren’t fixed properly for months on end.
- Front doors and washing machines had to be replaced.
- Heating and hot water didn’t work for three months.
- One bath had a shower above it but no taps for the bath.
Speaking to Mailonline, buyers in three housing developments built by Brierley Homes in the last two years have described customer service as ‘horrendous’, the quality of remedial work carried out by tradesman as ‘appalling’ and claimed the company and contracted builder would ‘just blame each other.’
Mother-of-two Kirsty Hope, 39, and her fiancé moved into their £395,000 four-bedroom new home in Harrogate in September 2022. Brierley Built 19 homes on the site of a former care home in a prime location.
‘We have all had issues with the developer, their customer service is shocking,’ she said. ‘As people they are very aggressive, abrasive and rude and not helpful. They have caused a lot of stress and distress.’
Ms Hope said she is now pleased with the property, but had issues with a leaking bath, ill-fitting front door and a garden that regularly flooded.
Paula, 59, and Graham Hodson, 58, had problems with leaking washing machine, front door that needed replacing
The garden has taken two years to fix. ‘Last winter it was so waterlogged we had to wear wellies to go to the little office at the bottom of the garden,’ she said.
‘The problem was that the builder blamed Brierley and Brierley blamed the builder. There was a lot of arguing between the two.’
Neighbour Colin Sinclair, 69, and wife Gillian, 60, bought their three-bedroom home for £325,000 and are so fed with a series of disasters they are selling up.
They had a flood after the first bath when they moved in.
He said: ‘I took a bath which was not connected up and when I pulled the plug the water straight through the floor down into the kitchen below and wrecked the island which had to be replaced.’
The roof ‘leaked for over a year and flooded the loft.’
Mrs Sinclair said: ‘The rain came down into the bedroom one day. It was in the morning and dripping down next to me.’
There were repeated failed attempts to fix it and scaffold was erected for eight weeks.
Having lost faith in Brierley Homes’s expertise, the couple spent £800 on their own surveyor to identify the issues.
Most worryingly he told the couple their gable end wall was not secured properly internally to comply with building rules and risked collapse in high winds.
One local told MailOnline: ‘This was supposed to be my happy home but it’s the most unhappy and distressing period of my life’
Other problems included a garden that ‘flooded every time there was heavy rain’ – new drainage had to be put in by Brierley Homes.
Extractor fans were ‘taped up’ for a year and the vents went into the loft rather than outside, breaching building regulations.
She said: ‘It has been incredibly stressful. I threatened legal action and eventually got things fixed.’
She added: ‘It’s just so sad. You buy a house and want to move in to be safe. The saying goes that the roof over your head protects you, so when it’s leaked for two years it’s devastating.
‘We didn’t have the best of experiences. They were aggressive and arrogant but it’s the lies you struggle with most of all. Every time they said they had done it the roof leaked again.’
Another resident said all 19 washing machines were not as promised and replaced, along with front doors.
Matt Sapsford, 57, who works in IT, said tradesmen without the necessary skills carried out remedial work to the door and kitchen.
Here a leaking pipe can be seen. Paula, 59, and Graham Hodson, had a leaking roof and faulty guttering
He said they did a ‘horrible job’ in the kitchen. ‘It looked like it was done by a blind painter and decorator and not a skilled craftsman.’
Mr Sapsford said he was upset by Brierley Homes as he was told profits from the site of the former care home ‘would go back into social care.
He said: ‘We thought it was a great idea. But they have lost money all along the way. They probably used up their profits trying to correct everything.’
Paula, 59, and Graham Hodson, 58, have had similar issues with their two-bedroom house.
Their original washing machine flooded seven times and they are now on their third machine.
They had a leaking roof and faulty guttering.
At one point Mrs Hodson couldn’t get out the front door as she wasn’t able to undo the lock.
Mr Hodson said: ‘They had an odd job person going around doing specialist jobs. When they fixed the door it wouldn’t close properly.
‘After a year we got rid of them and got our own people to fix the problems. We spent about £2,000 on work they should have done.’
Over in the village of Marton-Cum-Grafton 20 family homes have been built in a cul-de-sac, with the final one on sale for £950,000.
Nina Middleton, 69, ended up presenting Brierley Homes with a list of more than 60 snagging problems at her four-bedroom £730,000. After almost two years the list of work is still not complete.
At one site – The Paddocks – in the village of Great Ouseburn, six three-bedroom homes to be sold for £485,000 have been constructed but the showroom has closed, the site is sealed off and the access road is yet to be built
Her partner David Trickett, 71, described Brierley Homes as ‘a bit of a shambles.’
He said they ‘just seem to put you off to another day.’ Adding: ‘I have to get obnoxious to get things done.’
A 65-year-old neighbour, who asked not to be named, said of Brierley Homes: ‘They have lost loads of money and it’s shocking. I am a taxpayer myself, they are putting the problems right for me but it’s coming out of our pockets in the long run. They should stick to building council houses.’
Mother-of-two Kathy Allwood, 32, and her husband Jason, 31, rent one of the six ‘affordable’ homes on the site.
‘We didn’t have any heating or hot water for about three months when we moved in,’ she said.
The homes are supplied by a ground source heat pump system which failed at her semi.
‘They took weeks to come out. We had to go to my mum’s house in Harrogate for a shower. We don’t drive and so had to pay for taxis.’
‘They fixed it after about six weeks and then it broke again the next day.’
The family also had a leak in the upstairs toilet that damaged the living room wall and a leak in the children’s bedroom.
She added: ‘I was very angry and going a bit insane. I told them I had little children but they didn’t seem to be that concerned.’
At a newly built cul-de-sac in Pateley Bridge, a town surrounded by stunning Yorkshire Dales countryside, the issues of faulty doors, leaks, flooded gardens and poor tradesmen have been repeated.
Other problems reported by those living in properties built by Brierley Homes included a garden that ‘flooded every time there was heavy rain’
One couple, who asked not to be named, nicknamed a repair man ‘Mastic Mick’ because he went around the house ‘filling every hole and gap possible.’
They had a two-year saga with a faulty bifold door and a ‘massive bulge in the wall’ by the stairs that was ‘cut into’ by a worker on Friday afternoon only for him never to return.
The owner said the house is fine now but her experience with Brierley Homes customer service was ‘horrendous.’
While a neighbour not only had a pipe split, which sent water flooding into the kitchen on the day he arrived, but also had a dangerously unsafe wood burner fitted.
‘Smoke was coming into the house and we were issued with a safety certificate when it wasn’t safe,’ he said. ‘It could have been very serious indeed because of carbon monoxide.’
At a fourth upmarket development of nine homes in Swainby, repairs are being carried out to chimneys that have been found to leak.
Things are not going according to plan at all the current building sites either.
At one site – The Paddocks – in the village of Great Ouseburn, six three-bedroom homes to be sold for £485,000 have been constructed but the showroom has closed, the site is sealed off and the access road is yet to be built.
The company has submitted a planning application to the council – raising a potential conflict of interest issue – to build five further properties.
Pictured: Kirsty Hope, 39, who had problems with garden flooding and terrible customer service
However, villagers say the site has become an ‘eyesore’ and no one knows what will happen next.
Dr Robert Jones, a retired GP and Chairman of the Parish Council, has been unimpressed with Brierley Homes and the council’s venture into property development.
He said: ‘North Yorkshire Council are desperate for money. They have tried quite sincerely to generate more income but have gone to areas where they shouldn’t have gone because they don’t have the expertise.’
Brierley Homes was set up in 2017 by the council in North Yorkshire (the largest by size in the country), not to build standard council houses for low-income families but to use council land to construct upmarket homes in middle class towns and villages where demand and prices are high.
The aim was to generate extra profits to fund council services.
While the theory was sound, the reality hasn’t gone to plan.
Official accounts show cumulative losses of £1.7 million up until March 2023, with losses every year except one.
With a further loss of £1.3m for the next tax year set to be disclosed in the latest accounts.
Dr Robert Jones the Chairman of Great Ouseburn Parish Council outside the Paddocks development
North Yorkshire Council still expect the company to return profits of £2.8m over the next three years, but even if that happens not a penny will have been generated in extra funds overall in a decade.
Meanwhile, Brierley Homes is still repaying a loan – which was £10.5m in the latest accounts – provided by the ‘parent company’, which is effectively the taxpayer.
Chairman Karl Battersby said profit and loss figures must be ‘viewed with context’ and the company had provided ‘positive value to the council.’
He said: ‘As with any house-building company, the return in investment relies on sales income which often does not simply fall within the same financial year.
Speaking to Mailonline, buyers in three housing developments built by Brierley Homes in the last two years have described customer service as ‘horrendous’, the quality of remedial work carried out by tradesman as ‘appalling’ and claimed the company and contracted builder would ‘just blame each other’
‘Instead, it is part of a longer-term pipeline of productivity – from identifying sites to obtaining planning permission, designing and constructing houses, and then taking them to market.
‘Since the company was formed, the total positive value to the council has actually been in excess of £250,000 with a strong balance sheet.’
Benjamin Elks, grassroots development manager of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘Local taxpayers will be livid that their council is playing fast and loose with the finances.
‘Rather than focus on delivering high quality services at a low cost, town hall bosses are gambling that they can make money on the property market, safe in the knowledge that residents will bail them out if they crash and burn.
‘North Yorkshire Council needs to urgently get a grip on the running of this company and bear this in mind next time it thinks about pursuing similar schemes.’
Responding to the criticism Mr Battersby, the Brierley Homes Chairman, said changes had been made to reduce the ‘issues.’
He said the company had moved from using ‘main contractors’ to ‘in-house teams’ for its projects.
‘This has been done to improve both the consistency and quality of our work,’ he said.
‘Issues inherited by the team, which included complaints about snagging and were previously outside the control of Brierley Homes, have been responded to.
‘We have worked hard to address each complaint and now have a dedicated customer care process in place in order to ensure issues are dealt with promptly and professionally.’
