About Countryside

Property management is not too bad as their is a cleaning and gardening services are scheduled to take place quite frequently.

Please tell us what you like and dislike about this area:

There is a lot of littering and bins overflowing with rubbish at times attracting foxes, pigeons and dreaded to say even rats.

Inconsiderate drivers live around the area who may even hit into someone as accidents have occurred right outside where we live due to the volume of traffic near fed from the roundabout. Anti-social behaviour does exist and at night it is not unusual to see groups of alcoholics and other individuals making noise or playing loud music on the street or within their cars.

Variety of shops and restaurants is plentiful and you have local postal services nearby. Transportation is okay but is located in a otherwise very busy location and driver’s for buses tend to change quite a bit close to where we are which leads to increasing wait times.

In addition, rail and train stations are close by which means does help with travel but costs are quite high. Parking is a major issue and is exclusive to homes with at least three bedrooms and due to Wembley arena the event day parking makes it near impossible to park around the neighbourhood.

Bin collection is done in a sloppy manner as after a collection people come out to witness leftover garbage on a otherwise clean patch of lawn.

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

It would have helped a lot to know that we would never be eligible for parking due to the condition being based on the number of bedrooms within the home.

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

They delayed the time in preparing the property due to paintwork issues.

3

Facilities

3

Design

3

Location

3

Value

3

Management

The facilities and building management seems good for bin collections and parking space. However, there have been a lot of complains by the development’s residents of litter and fouling from dog walkers who live outside the neighbourhood and garbage blowing away from bins and being left in the public green area for days, if not weeks.

Property management has been extremely slow, either due to the pandemic or a poor after-care ticketing system. It can take weeks and several months to get some of your complains heard to fix the major and minor issues. On average, it can take up to half or a full year to resolve all the items on your snag-list, unless your chase the project managers on a daily or weekly basis.

Please tell us what you like and dislike about this area:

Although, Eccles still needs a lot of investment to improve its image within Greater Manchester, the property development is located in a pretty good accessible location. If your don’t drive then this location is very beneficial for commuting to work as the train station, metrolink tram station and the bus station are all 10-15 minutes of walking distance. The local town has all your typical shops, take-aways, pubs, post-offices, banks including two big supermarkets, Aldi and Morrisons for your weekly shopping. One of the biggest shopping centres in the UK, the Trafford Centre is also a 20 minutes walk away.

The inside of the neighbourhood feels pretty safe, regardless of what the crime rate is like in Eccles.

I don’t hear any traffic noise from the main roads outside the neighbourhood as my house is in located in the middle. However, there is a big problem about the constant low humming noise apparently coming from the CarGrill factory based in the industrial state that is across the canal which is located behind the property development.

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

If you are a light sleeper or appreciate peace and quiet, then you might not enjoy the sound pollution of the constant humming noise that is apparently coming from an industrial factory owned by CarGrill across the canal, which is behind the development located at Guinness Road, Trafford Park, Stretford, Manchester.

If you live in a 3 story house, then you can hear the noise through the roof walls or the 6 Velux skylight windows of the master bedroom on the 3rd floor almost every night and sometimes even during the day. You can’t hear it that much from the 1st or 2nd floors, as the windows and walls are a bit sound proof.

However, the frequency of the sounds fluctuates from day-to-day and it can be very irritating when you’re trying to sleep every night. This is an issue that possibly may have stopped me from buying my house, had I knew this noise was always there as it is taking months to almost a year to get complaints heard by Salford and Trafford Council from my neighbours.

Also, almost every house in the development has had an issue with poor drainage in their back garden, which apparently takes several months to a year to get your complaints heard by the developer in getting your garden soil dug up again and new grass tiles relayed by the landscapers.

What is the best feature of your home:

The best feature of my home are the skylight windows in the master bedroom on the 3rd floor and kitchen/dining room. I also like the skin basin/vanity units in the main bathroom and en-suite.

The only thing I currently don’t like too much is the street design and neighbours parking up the roads. The streets are designed to be narrow with dedicated parking bays and crossing exits and neighbours decided to ignore everything and park their cars all over the place, even if it means that they are blocking the narrow part of the street or the crossing or other people’s car ports. The property management was meant to put parking restrictions in place and get a traffic warden, but they find plenty of excuses not to do so (hence a lower property management and design score).

The house is also about a 10-15min walk away from High Barnet station (again, 2 bus stops) and 2 bus lines lead through the development as well.

For children there is also a little park in the centre, though depending on the expansion of the area, there may be the need for a second playground as on some days it gets a bit crowded there.

Please tell us what you like and dislike about this area:

Nice area, friendly people and it’s very quiet. Neighbours mostly keep to themselves. There are plenty of schools and nurseries in the area, which is good for any family thinking of moving here. Barnet high street is only 10-15min on foot (or 2-3 bus stops) away and there is a massive green park area a few minutes away, as well as a Coop mini market and 4 free to use tennis courts.

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

The area is generally very family friendly and most neighbours do have children. So if you’re looking for a retirement home, this won’t be it. This is more for families trying to find the best and safest home for their children with Ofsted outstanding nurseries and schools around the corner. GPs are generally not the best here, but to be fair, they haven’t been anywhere I have lived so far.

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

Slow, partial responses; though this may be Corona related. The traffic management is quite bad in the area and the property management so far has used Corona for not getting double yellow lines put down, in over a year now.