The location is amazing; you’re in zone 2, you have great transport links. You have the O2 and City Airport ‘on your doorstep’ and can get into the city within 20 minutes.
Canning Town is a really up-and-coming area with more additions of supermarkets, shops, bars and coffee houses by the day. There is also a cinema on the way, which will make this area very popular and fun to live in.
With tube links and City Airport a few stops away on the DLR, plus with Stratford Station 2 stops away on the Jubilee Line, not only are you easily connected to Central London, but you also have easy access to trains and planes to travel the rest of the country and the world.
There is very limited parking in the complex’s underground parking, but street parking permits are available. However, with such good public transportation connections who needs a car?
Living facing the River Thames and the train tracks means you don’t hear the noise from the traffic, however you do hear the Jubilee Line, which unfortunately is currently very noisy day and night!
Please review your development:
The building is owned by Vistry Partnerships, which is an amalgamation of Bovis Homes and Galliford Try. Galliford Try have never worked in residential property before and it shows! There are an awful lot of teething problems, more than there should be. Their lack of knowledge in this sector is also reflected in their design approach, execution and finishing. But rather than listen to issues raised by owners and correct them, they will come up with excuses or poor reasons to mask them. For example: the intercom system is appalling. It’s an absolute nightmare and should be hardwired. But they give the excuse of it being “the future” and “cutting edge” when it’s just a cost saving exercise that has backfired.
The facilities are up to standard and with a 10 year NHBC guarantee the property management staff are fairly good at seeing that most material and product issues are sorted within an acceptable time frame.
The building management staff, however, are amazing; concierge are super friendly and helpful, and the background support staff have a handy man who is great at assisting with any small jobs around the complex and inside your apartment, they are great! Plus the online portal and email updates from the complex is the best I have seen – really professional with notifications of parcels received, regular site updates as well as general newsletters. Top marks on this front!
Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:
The view from your apartment/balcony (good and bad) and how much noise you would get from the tube tracks.
Also, how constrictive the NHBC 10 warranty makes things. I.e. you are given extra space, blank switches and spare fuse slots on the fuse board for additional appliances you may wish to add yet you are not allowed to install additional appliances (such as a water softener) as these can void your 10 year NHBC warranty. This was never highlighted and in fact contradictory to these electrical allowances created and presented/advertised on the home demo.
If there is one thing you would change about your flat or property what would it be:
The Developers and/or Sales/Aftersales Team. They mis-sell and mislead, and then do very little to resolve these breaches in contractual obligations. This could lead them into hot water very soon!
