About MHA (Methodist Homes)

Micklehill is a new retirement village in the outskirts of a market town. The development itself is spacious and well designed with open spaces.
My bungalow, which I moved into new, I describe as spaciously compact! The fittings are of a very good standard and has been well designed, with a good sized lounge with a French door to a small patio, a reasonable size bedroom, a beautifully tiled bathroom with a walk in shower and a kitchen diner with integrated appliances. My grouse here is the fridge freezer is not self defrost and the oven is not self clean. And a large cupboard space is taken up with a large dishwasher, which as I live alone I never use.
I have the, due mainly due to Covid, joined in with the wide range of activities, nor have I used the stylish bistro. It is a lovely place to live

The design of the development is fine although the high atrium and the glass roof are difficult to maintain and I don’t believe it has been cleaned inside or out once in its lifetime.
The apartments are also well designed and allow good privacy and very little noise disturbance. On the downside, the windows are not well fitted and sealed and we suspect that the insulation is below regulation standard. Our electricity bill is over £1,500 per annum for a 1,200 square ft apartment.
The outside of the building has just been cleaned and repainted for the first time which would be about 7 years since development. Considering the contingency charges of 1% of resale value per annum per 76 apartments for 10 years, there must be a huge amount (actual and accrued) in the contingency fund, so we should expect a much better maintenance regime in this respect. Bearing in mind that very few residents will stay longer than 10 years and each new resident restarts the clock for 1% per annum etc.
Estimate…. Average resale price per apartment £200,000 x 76 Apartments = £15.2 Million x 1% = £152,000 per annum………X 7 years (to date) = £1,064,000. That is a very healthy Contingency Fund
The building roof outside our apartment has a leak and it has been there for the three + years we have lived here.
The Management at MHA head office are not accessible and the onsite management has been poor. The first Manager had two office administrators and were very helpful and personable people. They worked with residents to make the scheme atmosphere pleasant for all of us. The only downside we can say is that they were not very good at selecting trades people to maintain services.
Then, when the Manager was replaced by a person who distanced herself from the residents as much as possible and hid away in her newly constructed private office with her dog!
And now, several valuable staff members have left. There is one person in the admin office and apparently we now share a scheme manager with two other MHA homes.

The open aspect of wide corridors in between apartments is very uplifting as are the wide roads and open spaces between the bungalows. Our bow window looks west and we enjoy glorious sunsets, especially this time of year. We live in an apartment and are very pleased with the extra large shower room. The management are very insistent that the properties are maintained in fist class condition. A pleasure to live here and feel safe and well looked after.

The site layout is excellent with the Pavilion apartments being the hub and surrounded by bungalows about 100 of each. Very spacious to walk around and was well used during Covid lockdown. Wimpey could have got at least 4x as many properties on the site. The Pavilion is like living in a hotel but with an apartment instead of a room. All the facilities inside so no having to go out on a wet night, unless you choose a bungalow. Eat in or cook for yourself and something for everyone, keep fit in the gym, relax in the bar and get something you need from the shop