Payment dispute sees entrance to Royal Haslar Waterfront Village blocked for second time this year

By Joe Buncle
Published 7th Jul 2023, 16:24 BST
Updated 7th Jul 2023, 16:25 BST
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Contractors blocked the entrance to a luxury housing development for the second time in four months amid claims of withheld payments.

Residents at the Royal Haslar Waterfront Village in Gosport were frustrated this morning to see a flatbed lorry blocking their way in and out of the site. When approached by The News during the incident, someone from the company which owns the flatbed lorry confirmed that the action was in response to Harcourt’s failure to pay for work carried out at the site. According to Harcourt, the matter has now been resolved and the vehicle was removed.

The incident is the second such protest over unpaid bills this year, with a different scaffolding company taking similar action in April.

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The vehicle blocked the entrance as following a dispute over payment.The vehicle blocked the entrance as following a dispute over payment.
The vehicle blocked the entrance as following a dispute over payment.

Louise Walder, who has lived at the site for almost two years, said she and other residents have been consistently disappointed by the quality of work at the site.

Louise said: ‘As residents, we are not getting stuff done. We’ve got a lot of issues with poor workmanship – I’ve just had to have all my walls painted again because all the paint was coming off and it wasn’t done properly and I had to pay for that privately.

‘To the inconvenience of everybody else, they have had to open gates that they shouldn’t open to get people on site. We’re all pretty fed up about it. We’re pee-ed off with them anyway because of the level of stuff that’s just not being done here. Sometimes, we feel like we’re being held hostage because of what the site aren’t doing. It is a bit like that when you can’t technically get in and out of your own entrance because your landlords aren’t paying the bills. We’ve got massive site bills that we pay – service charges – and what are we getting for that?’

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Louise said neighbours have told her that this is the third time the situation has played out.

Haslar Developments Ltd is overseen by chairman Andrew Parker Bowles, the Queen Consort’s first husband.

Related topics:ResidentsGosport