Bromsgrove’s Head of Planning was “horrified” to learn of the locked gates blocking access to public space on the CALA Homes “Foxhills” development in Barnt Green, the parish council heard.
District and parish councillor Charlie Hotham said he had informed Ruth Bamford of the matter after failing to get a response from the planning officer handling the case.
“Maybe now something will be done about it,” he said.
Coun Hotham discovered over the summer that 46 per cent of designated public land on the site is inaccessible to all but five houses, due to locked gates at either end of a public right of way linking the estate to Cherry Hill Road.
Parish councillor Joe Nilsson, who lives on the development, said there was a wider problem with some residents thinking that green spaces belonged to them.
“Children are being yelled at for playing on the grass, because the home-owners think it’s their personal land.”
Coun Nilsson wondered if this had been caused by a similar misunderstanding to that over the five houses behind the gates.
He added that the issue was causing animosity across the estate, and that he had been trying to get CALA, and the management company that now runs Foxhills, to deal with it for the past seven months.
Fellow resident Coun Phil Perry said: “The management company is actually owned by CALA, who have been very clever as it allows them to act daft.”