A guide to living in Borough of Richmond upon Thames

The design of the buildings leaves much to be desired. Balconies are small. A few have overhead protection from the rain but why the developers did not include Balconies on some flats is beyond belief. Fittings are poor. Definitely not up to the marketing blurb with sinks not draining properly and being of poor quality. Other examples are:- Only One fitted wardrobe between 3 bedrooms, Shower trays that are not non slip, corridors that overheat and waste electricity. Baths that are difficult to get in and out of with no grab handles fitted. The freezers fitted are out of date models which don't self defrost and the sanitary wear has come from a cheap supplier. In Luxury developments (as this was advertised to be) one would expect the sanitary wear and sinks to have come from a well known brand like Armitage Shanks, Roca etc. There are not enough electric sockets and rumour has it that toward the end of the building process it was decided that a bit of money could be saved by installing less power points. The same applies to outside taps and sockets. There have been endless problems with the MVHR and HIU units that provide heating and hot water. Contractors have told us that cheap models were installed. The managing agents have changed 3 times in 6 years and all leave much to de desired. communications come from an office in South Africa ! Worse still is that you cannot get answers from the Developers, Dartmouth Capital run by David Ashcroft, who directs all queries to the managing Agents who have relatively no knowledge of past history about this property development. Midgard, the builders have done an appalling job with drains being too small, pumps inadequate so that when we have had heavy rain the car park gets flooded. The communal rubbish room will be too small once the whole development has been sold. We have had the Glass in all windows around the Estate replaced 3 times and now it seems that there are items that all fall foul of fire regulations! The directors of Dartmouth Capital should take more interest in what problems there are if they want to sell all the flats instead of just passing the buck on to Urang, the managing agents. Numerous promises in the Marketing advertising have been false and there is a case for misrepresentation under the Trade Descriptions Act. The Communal gardens have not lived up to the Marketing blurb and currently are in a sorry state. Owners will not have the right to a residents committee until all 217 properties have been sold and the way things are going that might not be until 2050 at earliest. An offshore company has been formed, presumably by David Ashcroft, to purchase 70+ flats for letting which was not in the original plan and some renters just don't seem to care about the rules and regulations of living here. These are not enforced by the Estate Management or the company in charge of renting, Campions. The owners are still owed some money from Dartmouth Capitall because the original electric and gas meters were wrongly labelled and this is proving a nightmare to sort out. Mr Ashcroft wriggles out of his responsibilities to sort these problems out which all come from the original installation being poorly done. To sum up:- if I had known how many problems I would have had with the Developers, Dartmouth Capital, I would never have bought here. They just appear to take your money and move on.

A group of us have come to realise that we are facing the same issues: water leaks that drive up your water bill by 10x, little to no maintenance, dirty communal spaces and elevators, and all together an unpleasant place especially in hot weather because of the positioning of some apartments.

An abhorrent mistake that must be avoided at all costs. The stove does not work, so you will spend hours boiling an egg. You will invest an inordinate amount of money fixing everything and trying to make everything look nice, from the dirty brown carpet to all other spaces.

On the surface, the building appears to have been fitted out to a high standard. But below the surface the development is riddled with problems. In the short time we have lived here we have had issues with mould, numerous plumbing issues, lift problems, and the hot water / water generally has gone off multiple times, often for hours at a time - not what you’d expect when the rent is sky high. There is generally a friendly community feel, however the management company are horrible to deal with - even received an email asking people to remove their Christmas lights from their balconies as apparently is was against the rules & residents had complained. Really disappointing.

The estate is well designed, pleasing to the eye and is in one of the most beautiful parts of london. There are some negatives, there is significant light pollution from the sports grounds next to the buildings, and noise pollution from both the sports grounds and the anglers pub, the pub can become extremely noisy come football or rugby screenings. The high street is close by and very cute.