It was billed as the dream newbuild estate to settle down and have a family in a tranquil pocket of the West Country.
But residents living in Palmerston Heights, in Plymouth, Devon, have laid bare the true horrors of being trapped in leaseholder contracts on an estate dubbed the ‘worst in the south-west’.
Families were attracted to the Persimmon Homes estate due to its beautiful views and its easy access to the suburb of Derriford and the sprawling Dartmoor National Park.
But after £52million was pumped into building the Forder Valley Link Road right outside their doors, residents say they wish they had never moved there.
Those living in newbuilds on Pintail Way say they were never informed that they would open their front doors to a busy main road, which runs for 1km and has a 140-metre bridge between the A38 and the north of Plymouth.
The once quiet road started being ripped apart and transformed into a dual carriageway in 2019 and was built to bring new homes and businesses to the area and reduce traffic from the A38.
Since 2015, Persimmon began work on building close to 900 two-bed and three-bed homes at Palmerston. And while residents now have an effective transport link, they claim they still lack basic amenities such as shops and playgrounds.
When MailOnline visited the estate this week, homeowners whose houses are surrounded by scaffolding and JCB diggers told us how they feel trapped in unsellable properties which they have dubbed ‘Fawlty Towers’.
Pictured is the busy dual carriageway which runs in front of the homes on Pintail Way (boxed in red). The row of houses to the left is covered in scaffolding because the stonework needs to be rebuilt
Families say they were sold a dream and would never have moved to the estate if they knew about the road. Pictured: Mark Stephen and his sons
Emma Trimmer (pictured) said the danger of the road outside their home is ‘insane’
Anger has mounted from those living on the Palmerston Heights estate, with some forced to put posters up in their windows in protest
Emma Trimmer, 43, and her husband Steven, 40, left a quiet cul-de-sac to move into one of the first houses on the estate in January 2017.
The couple, who paid £248,000 for their home, say they would never have made the move with their three children if they had known about the link road and now feel ‘trapped’ in an ‘unsellable’ home.
Ms Trimmer said: ‘We were never informed it was going to become a main road. The day I moved in, my neighbour invited me in for a cup of tea and that’s when I was informed of the news.
‘If I had known, I would never have moved here because at the time my youngest was three years old.
‘The thought of having young children on the main road… the danger of the road is insane.
‘There’s no safety features, no speed bumps, people fly up this road doing 60pmh because there’s no speed cameras. They see it as a freeway and you’ve got your boy racers.
‘It is noisy and the longer the road has been here, the busier it’s getting.’
The Trimmers pay £180-a-year as leaseholders, but this could increase when they reach the 10-year mark in two years.
Rebecca Jones (pictured) has also had a nightmare experience with Persimmon, living on a ‘building site’ next to the main road for the first five months
Pictured is the Palmerston Estate in Plymouth which has been dubbed ‘one of the worst in the south-west’ by a local architect
Residents have shown their discontent towards Persimmon by putting up posters in their windows
Residents are living in these homes on Pintail Way while work is done to replace the stonework
When MailOnline visited this week, there was huge amounts of construction still going on
Pictured is the back of the homes on Pintail Way. Just yards away from their homes is the busy Forder Valley link road which residents say they were not told about
The couple are now scrambling to save money so that they can buy the lease and therefore own the land that the house sits on.
‘We would feel scared and trapped [if we can’t buy the lease]. We’ve tried selling it twice now, both times we are having to sell it at £260,000 when the same house further into the estate is selling for £325,000.
‘The road has lost us a great deal of money. The fact we are leaseholders has lost us money and the property hasn’t sold.
‘My house is now only worth £10,000 more eight years later. It is unsellable. We have tried twice.
‘With three young children, I moved into a cul-de-sac to come here. If I’d known that road was being built, I would never have even moved here. I live in a house I can’t sell, so to me I’m stuck.’
The house itself, Ms Trimmer says, has been ‘trying to kill her for the last few years’.
Last year, they lived on a ‘building site’ among scaffolding as all the fronts of the front of the homes on Pintail Way have to be rebuilt due to dodgy slate installed when they were first built.
Persimmon, like many other developers across the south west, have been affected by the lantoom stone and have been working to replace it in homes.
Emma Trimmer is pictured with her Pintail Way home behind her which enters out onto the busy road
Mark Stephen (pictured outside his home on the main road) claims they were promised a tree-lined boulevard and ended up with a busy main road
Those living in newbuilds on Pintail Way say they were never full informed about the scale and disruption of the road, which runs for 1km and has a 140-metre bridge between the A38 and the north of Plymouth
The whole front of Emma Trimmer’s home had to be rebuilt due to dodgy stonework. Her house is right on the main road
On one occasion, Ms Trimmer walked through the front door and a dislodged roof tile nearly landed on her head.
The Trimmers are not alone in their anger at not being told about the Forder Valley link road.
Mark Stephen, 47, and his wife Katherine, 39, were also part of the first wave of homeowners to move to Pintail Way nine years ago, spending £250,000 on their four-bed house.
The couple, who have two young children, aged six and 11, say they were promised a tree-lined boulevard outside their front doors with shops at the top and have instead ended up with a busy main road.
Mr Stephen told MailOnline: ‘We were sold the fact that road was going to be a tree-lined boulevard. We’ve ended up with a main road.
‘We jumped up and down saying this is disgusting, we started a claim against our solicitors because they didn’t give us the information about the road because if they had of done, we would never have exchanged contracts.
‘From that, we ended up with a very successful out of court settlement.’
Talking about the disruption it brings, he said: ‘It is noisy. Regularly every night you get woken up by an ambulance flying up and I’ve got no problem with the sirens but we were also told they would be triple-glazing soundproof windows.’
There are set to be more houses built on land to the left which will mirror the estate to the right
Families say motorbikes and cars race up the road, right in front of their houses
Ms Stephen said there were months where they had to live among the scaffolding when the front of their house was being rebuilt.
One day, they claim they returned from holiday to find the front door had dislodged from its hinges, which was not fixed for months.
Ms Stephen told how two-bed houses further into the estate have sold for close to what they bought their home for.
Mr Stephen said: ‘We are a four-bed townhouse with a garage and two parking spaces. Because we are on the main road, we are losing money.
‘I would never have moved here, my children were very young. There is no way we would have bought this house if that was going to be the main road between the A38 and Derriford.’
When asked about whether he would sell, Mr Stephen explained: ‘We would sell if the opportunity came up. If we sell this and try and find something comparatively we are going to bolt ourselves up with another £200k mortgage.
‘We potentially won’t move until our youngest finishes school up the road. We will just deal with it how we can deal with it and just suffer it. It’s just a case of suffering.’
Further down Pintail Way is Matthew Potter, 47, who bought his house for £249,000 when he moved in with his wife and two children right at the start.
Speaking at his house, which is covered in scaffolding, he said: ‘Our survey for the house stated there would be no major road within 300 metres of the property.
‘Our assumption was that small road was going to be the one that was there. We thought it would be more like a normal street.’
Mr Potter said the road is significantly disruptive, but their main concern – as parents of two young children – was the large particulates coming through the vents.
‘It is disruptive having road traffic and the more concerning thing is the pollution entering the house,’ he said. ‘Them growing up near a major road was something we never planned to do.’
Mr Potter says he loves the house itself, but wonders if he would have ever moved here if he had known about the major road and the problems it would bring.
‘I would have liked open honesty from the first place. At no point did I see a plan for a major road,’ he said.
On the corner of the main road is Rebecca (pictured) and Andy Jones, who paid £315,000 when they moved in a year ago
But they are furious at ending up with a house which has different colours on the back and side (pictured)
‘Honesty in the first place and making sure the properties were up to the spec for being on a major road, they would have been the two things I wanted.’
On the corner of the main road is Rebecca and Andy Jones, who paid £315,000 when they moved in a year ago.
While they knew what they were signing up to with the road, their dream move quickly became a nightmare after they were forced to live in a ‘building site’ for the first five months.
‘To have gone through the stress and anxiety of what we have gone through is not what we were after at all,’ Ms Jones said.
Before they moved in, they were informed that the stonework was going to be removed and there would be new rendering on the front and the side of the house.
When they asked why the back wasn’t being done, they say they were told it would be cleaned and would all be matching.
‘We thought great we are going to end up with what will look like a brand new house that’s nine years old,’ she said.
Ms Jones explained: ‘In May, the scaffolding went up and Persimmon just don’t communicate.
‘Our house, being on the end, became the loading bay. The work went on for six months, the scaffolding didn’t come down until the end of October. Our first summer in the house was pretty horrendous.
‘We couldn’t open the front door for six months. Where they had done all the work, I think it had altered the frame and it was jamming.’
They say that water was also coming through and they ended up with a ‘two-tone house’, where the side and front were a different colour to the back.
‘There’s been times where we could have easily put this house on the market and gone,’ she said.
‘We’ve nicknamed the house Fawlty Towers, we just feel it’s been one thing after the other.
‘We moved in so excited but it’s been nothing but horrendous, it’s just been awful.
‘It was like living literally on a building site.’
Although they knew about the main road, they say they were promised triple glazing windows for soundproofing, but this has not happened. They are regularly disrupted by cars racing up the road.
The couple now fear that when they look to sell when their children have moved out, they will struggle to find a buyer.
Another neighbour, who did not want to be named, fumed at not being told about the main road when she moved in nine years ago.
She said: ‘We weren’t told about the main road. I moved from Southampton and we had a claim, we did get compensation.’
She also questioned where the £200 estate maintenance fees were going, adding: ‘When you look around the estate it’s just awful, it’s not being taken care of properly, that’s my main bugbear.
‘People have had to fight or threaten to get things done.’
Local architect Mark Pearson, who previously assessed the estate for a University College London report on housing schemes across the country, described Palmerston Heights as one of the worst estates he had visited in the south-west.
‘The cumulative effect of all the design flaws and the isolation of the estate make it a miserable place to try to exist,’ he said in 2020.
A spokesperson for Persimmon Cornwall and West Devon said: ‘We understand that some homeowners have previously raised concerns about the proximity of their properties to a nearby road. The presence and location of the road was clearly outlined in our pre-sale materials to customers.
‘Like many developers in the region, we sourced stone from Lantoom Quarry, some of which was later found to have issues affecting its suitability as an external facade.
‘Our programme at Palmerston Heights is well underway and making steady progress, with ongoing communication and support for affected homeowners.
‘We are not aware of any customers whose sale has been affected by the works, and we have offered to provide written assurances should any homeowner need them.’
