A Guide to Living in Sheffield

Please review your development:

Only good thing is the staff, apart from that everything else is declining. Outside not cleaned and rents are absolutely extortionate. Safety issues, and general uncleanliness. Lack of maintenance of the brown site area next to the development does not look good.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

That rents would rise so astronomically – it’s not competitive.

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

Tbh maintenance and repair has been done quite quickly when issues have been raised

Please review your development:

The reception team including Emma and Isaac are absolute delights, you could not meet a more lovely team. The facilities and community spaces offered by Brookplace are incredible. The gym is great.

Property management however are completely ineffective and rude. We had black mould and fungal spores growing through our flat and it took them no less than 6 months to attend to it.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

The community space is genuinely great and the reception team always go above and beyond and make special events and activities.

If you notice a problem before you move into the flat refuse to enter until they fix it otherwise they will delay and allow the problem to worsen before deciding to fix it and even then they will cut corners so beware

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

We were dismissed and delayed in having a mould ridden wall addressed despite this being pointed out prior to us moving in

Please review your development:

The building is very modern, and perhaps the best private accommodation in Sheffield in terms of furniture, facililities and layout. I will be dividing this into the good and the bad:

The good: The receptionists are all lovely and always willing to help, they greet you whenever you walk in or out, and after 8 you get a security guard who stays until midnight-ish. There’s two lifts on the reception side and another lift on the side door by the gym. The gym is good. It’s included in the rent and is rarely busy to the point where its crowded. Good choice of equipment etc. The lounge/ WFH area is good as well, they provide free coffee and syrups which is great if you’ve ran out of coffee and really need one for free. There’s also a gaming room and a professional kitchen both of which you can book for free. The furniture in the flats are good, the sofa was very comfortable and the appliances are modern and reliable. The bathrooms are lovely and the mattresses in the bedrooms are comfortable.

Now the bad: As with every high end luxury accommodation, the moving out process is a nightmare. It’s very stressful in terms of cleaning and making sure everything is spotless if you want to get your deposit back. They suggest having it professionally cleaned even though according to Citizens advise they can’t force you to do so, and they are very very detailed in the check out report about every single thing in the apartment. There have also been incidents of our neighbors smoking cigarettes and the scent lingering in the corridor, and even after we reported it nothing was done. Overall its a great property but if you’re on a budget, look somewhere else.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

The fact that its electricity only as well as a new built doesn’t make it cheaper for energy bills and such

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

Whenever we had issues with any appliances they responded promptly.

Please review your development:

Management are very friendly, helpful, kind and do their best to run the place.

I don’t use the gym and co-work space because I find people to be doing video calls in them both that are annoying to listen to so close by, and in the gym some non residents use it ( I think people who live here let them in, like their boyfriends or whatever). I also really dislike people playing their music loud in the gym (I don’t want to listen to your weird as heck RnB stuff thanks). People also take personal trainers in on occasion. ANYWAY, these details aren’t that important, I just have a very low threshold for working and exercising in other peoples noise. Many people do not care at all. I just mention because for me it’s relevant.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

***High density of students in the building*** undergrad, masters and phd. Depending on the luck of the draw, noise levels can be high at night. I was surrounded by students who, especially off term time, would sleep all day and live all night. Which is not conducive to sleep if you are a working professional or just like your sleep!!. Each apartment is equipped with a Nuaire branded air filtration system, which has air tunnels built in the ceilings and walls, this combined with the steel structure of the building, leads to a lack of noise insulation/absorption in each individual apartment; where there is empty space in the walls, noise will fill that vacuum (and head straight to your ears). The noise would also make my bed vibrate and shake with bangs. Now this definitely varies by location in the building. I post this explanation in detail because I have not slept a full night in 12 months now. I went through periods of serious sleep deprivation where I had to get regular blood pressure checks because they became spiked. I did complain to reception but unfortunately it was a dead end, and tbh what can they do, I’ve never known a landlord to truly enforce the standard no noise at night rule in the contract. I don’t know what is going on with the student population but moving furniture all night long and dragging it across the floor, having loud sex and banging your headboard at 12am, 2am, 4am, talking on your mobile in the hallway loudly like an episode of trigger happy …. clearly you are waking up an entire hallway of people. Why do I know so much about the architecture of the building? Many sleepless nights to think about it. I had a lot of repair man for other issues (a whole other story) in my apartment, I had asked them questions about the building. I also read stuff on reddit from builders involved in the construction, and did some research as to the materials Grainger use to make the building, and general reading about the physics of sound travel (sleep deprivation will make you weirdly intelligent lol). So this is your noise explanation of the building, from someone who experienced the very worst case scenario of noise levels. Hope this helps. my advice is get some ear plugs that are 40Db blocking (the maximum legal amount to be sold), and get a sleep mask that covers your eyes and ears on ebay (£10 max for both). Leave after 12months if you experience sleep issues (either internally to new apartment or somewhere else)

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

Small issues resolved quickly and efficiently. Larger issues such as leaking, take longer, however there is widespread water pipe issues in the building since its inception. (Repair man told me every apartment will experience a leak at some point because of a mis step when they built it. he went into detail on the pipe work and pressure but I can’t remember it all now). It’s fully possible that once apartment leaks once, that’ll be it resolved forever, so I don’t wanna say this is a long term issue for future residents. It’s likely not.