FOUR years after developers got the go ahead to build more than 270 homes on the new Ramshill estate in Petersfield, they have failed to provide an agreed play area and carry out approved footpath and landscaping work. Now, East Hampshire district councillors look set to demand that conditions agreed when the planning permission was granted in 2003 are met. And at a meeting of the south planning committee on Tuesday, they are likely to instruct their head of planning, Daryl Phillips, to take steps to draw a line under the negotiations with Taylor Woodrow Developments Ltd that have dragged on for so long. This week, Mr Phillips told The Herald: "I don't think the developers have dragged their heels, I think its a series of events that have slowed the whole process down. "More recently, it has been the agreeing of specifications that has held matters up together with the ability to test what has been agreed because of weather conditions. Also, I think that at the outset people did not realise the urgency of having all these things resolved." It was the then mayor of Petersfield, Brian Dutton, who first alerted district councillors to the fact that what they thought was a flat kickabout area on the new Ramshill estate had in fact been turned into a giant basin-shaped mudbath which flooded. In February 2005, Mr Dutton said he had major concerns about the surface water drainage for the whole site and he feared for the safety of children playing on the kickabout area. And for the past two years the council has been in negotiation with developers, their consultants and the Environment Agency to resolve the matter. In a report due to go to councillors next week, Mr Phillips has told them that when the developers original plans to deal with surface water proved impossible they came up with an alternative solution. This involved putting a 'balancing pond' under the approved kickabout area. Mr Phillips told The Herald: "The kickabout area is now not what we intended it to be, now that it is a balancing pond, and during some parts of the year it won't be as easy to use. We recognise it is not as good as we had hoped it would be." He believed that the developer should compensate for the 'less attractive' use of the kickabout area by paying an agreed sum for the area of land lost through the building of the balancing pond. He will also tell councillors next week that he is commissioning a second Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents report to ensure that safety standards are met on the kickabout area. In addition, he has reported that landscaping on the whole site has not been carried out exactly as agreed in the approved plans. He said: "The overall conclusion is that the site is a sell maintained development which is aesthetically pleasing ..... however, where inappropriate planting has been identified, replanting with more appropriate species is recommended." "We do need to regularise the situation with regard to the landscaping," Mr Phillips told The Herald. Finally, he said the agreed footpath and cycle link between the new estate and Ramshill had not been built "and there is increasing demand for its provision". "The problem with this," said Mr Phillips, "is that we need Hampshire County Council to adopt it, and they won't unless street lighting is up to their specification." The problem is that residents close to the footpath want to see low-level lighting installed which is less intrusive to their homes, but this is unacceptable to the county council. On Tuesday, councillors will be recommended to authorise Mr Phillips to go ahead and agree with the developers, a payment for the loss of the kickabout area, amended landscaping proposals and a footpath link with high-level lighting.