Our house is well built and designed, with large rooms and an attractive exterior. The fixtures and fittings are good quality and we haven’t had any major snags with the house itself, including hardly any cracks. In summer it’s nice and cool, and in winter it’s warm, so we really notice the energy efficiency. The inclusion of Hive smart heating also helps with this. Compared to other developers we feel we got excellent value for money and everyone who visits our house says how nice it is. The most major issues we’ve had are: the bathroom not being built as per the drawings (one wall did not continue to the ceiling where it was meant to), but that was rectified within days and you’d never know now that it was wrong initially – and the front door frame being misaligned.
We have however had endless issues with the garden due to a badly designed retaining wall, lack of sufficient drainage and very uneven ground. This has resulted in lots of work by Lovell including complete re-turfing of the garden, addition of drainage and moving of the fence. After 18 months we are still having regular meetings with the site team, contractors and the build manager about this.
Customer services were very difficult to deal with for the first year as our emails went unanswered for long periods. Once a new lady started as our contact however we’ve had excellent service and now we only have a few small snags left.
The management company have been excellent with good communication and good work carried out. It’s just a shame that a lot of our phase of the development still hasn’t been handed over to them so we have to chase Lovell to carry out the maintenance instead.
Also 18 months in and on a totally completed street, the road and pavement is still not finished and apparently won’t be until the entire development is complete. This makes it hard to park on certain kerbs and has left raised ironworks on the path which pedestrians frequently trip over. I have seen many worse roads however on other unfinished developments.
Overall we are very pleased with our house, not pleased with the garden, and not so pleased with the development as a whole – we are hoping that that will improve once it’s fully finished.
Please tell us what you like and dislike about this area:
Good:
– Priorslee is the nicest area of Telford
– There are lovely lakes and parks nearby so walking in the area is nice
– There is a pub nearby and a farm shop on the estate
– The town centre is a 5 minute drive away
– The street will be quiet once the larger adjacent street is opened up (not sure why it’s still barriered off as all houses are finished and occupied)
Bad:
– Very badly designed courtyard of 7 housing association properties causes endless issues with anti social behaviour, dangerous driving, bin lorries driving up what is essentially a private drive which isn’t built for that purpose.
– A select few housing association tenants really spoil the area unfortunately with fly tipping, screaming and shouting, foul language, drugs, loud music, etc.
– The balancing ponds are not maintained until we complain to Lovell (they have not been handed over to the management company yet due to further work being required by the water company), so they are unsightly.
Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:
My top two tips for buyers are:
– Pick up every single snag with both the house and garden. You wouldn’t put up with imperfections on a car so don’t put up with it on a house either – and push and push until everything is rectified.
– Consider the location of your plot very carefully. I really wish I didn’t have to say this, but our experience here has put us off buying anywhere near housing association properties again, due to the lack of respect that some tenants have for their neighbours, property, local area and even the law.
How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:
The build manager for the area was very responsive and arranged for multiple works to be carried out to fix the issues with our garden. We did have to argue with him and his team (including the site manager) at times to convince them of certain things, which they later admitted we were right about, which was frustrating. The Chasetown contractors have been great.
