Our bungling council is forcing us to pay £20k just to install electricity cables… it’s the reverse of the lottery
A FAMILY have hit out after they were billed £20,000 by the council to run an electricity cable to their home through land owned by the local authority.
Sarah Pope and her husband now feel “held to ransom” after the council charged them £20k for running a cable through a piece of their land.
The couple decided to build an extension to their home on the Malpas estate, in Truro, Cornwall, so they could accommodate her elderly parents – Mary and James Pascoe.
But the scheme hit a snag when National Grid told the couple that it was not possible to run a connection from the electricity pole to their extension.
The family then had to dig a trench across a piece of council owned land to connect the extension to the National Grid.
That is when the council told them they would be charged £20k for digging the trench across local authority land.
The actual cost for the work is £5,00 and will be carried out by private contractors.
Sarah’s daughter, Emily Scrivener, who is managing the building project, said the family felt “held to ransom.”
Emily told CornwallLive: “It does feel like the council is holding us to ransom.
“The phone call was the complete reverse of someone telling you you’ve won the lottery I imagine.”
Emily added:”I honestly think it’s disgusting to take a commercial view and to profit off my elderly relatives is criminal in my opinion,” she said.
“They are on a fixed income and have had to sell their bungalow, lose a lot of money which will never be returned as this is not an investment that will ever pay off for any of us financially.
“It’s a purely health and wellbeing decision.”
Speaking to The Sun last year, Tom Edwards, partner in property disputes at LCF Law, advised home owners do their research before carrying out extension work.
A spokeswoman for Cornwall Council said it was a long-established professional practice for a payment to be made to a landowner for accessing and using its land to facilitate development.
They added: “The level of charge is determined by the increase in value of the property and whilst ideally the resident should have asked for the council’s consent in advance of constructing the annex, that has not altered the council’s approach to the valuation.
“The resident is invited to appoint a chartered surveyor to discuss the matter with the council if they remain dissatisfied but a significant discount to the valuation has already been offered.”