Design of the building on the estate are fine. However, some of the extra facilities such as entrances, bin stores and the underground car park are poor quality. The car park door has broken multiple times and is often out of action for up to two weeks whilst it is waiting to be repaired. The bin store area is poorly designed with gaps big enough for people to access the bin area without a fob causing fly tipping to occur. This was eventually fixed after many months of asking. The same security flaw existed elsewhere on the estate but this has also been rectified. The online repair service does not work. Our PMO has to authorise and action this, but this rarely happens. To get things repaired we’ve had to raise a repair via the NHG online chat. For example, it took 8 weeks for our TV aerial to get fixed – after weeks of being raised online we later found out it hadn’t been looked at by our PMO. However, in terms of property management, inside the building is properly maintained as we have a cleaner once a week, and fly-tipping does get cleaned up.
Overall, we are happy with the development (except for the ongoing issue we have with the guttering and pigeon nesting) and the area could not be more convenient in terms of transport connections and amenities. However, what lets the experience down is the complete lack of communication in regards to our property management officer. Emails often get ignored. Things do eventually get resolved, albeit at a extremely slow pace. It seems that the PMOs have an extremely large area to cover and have no one else to delegate other jobs to. If they are off on annual leave then issues will be ignored. Expect multiple emails. We have an ongoing issue and in total this equates to around sent 200 emails. Most of these are just asking the same question about whether there is any progress.
In spite of this, we had no issues with the defects team and the property services. Communication was very good. On the other hand, the property management services are very poor. If this could be massively improved I don’t think we would have many issues with this estate at all.
Please tell us what you like and dislike about this area:
Excellent transport links for rail, underground and buses. Shops are only 10 minutes away. Restaurants and pubs are quite limited in the local area but this could improve in the future with new developments being built nearby.
Parking is non existent and the council give mixed messages about whether anyone is actually allowed to park on the estate. No parking is available in the local area either.
Bin collections are a big issue that has taken me personally many months of phone calls and emails to resolve – this is due to the estate being newly built and the council not recognising it on their website. Bin collections have been missed many times in the last 15 months and only resolved when I have contacted the council directly. Also, we share our bin store area with 10 other properties which causes the bins to get quite full very quickly.
Anti social behaviour was a big issue last summer, including the communal underground car park being broken into which led to the police being involved. I have personally raised multiple noise complaints on the estate due to groups of people hanging around drinking but NHG did nothing to resolve this. I also informed the police of this too.
There are no issues with traffic noise here as the main road doesn’t often get that busy.
Living on this estate would be massively improved if NHG communicated with residents properly and frequently.
Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:
Poor communication from PMO as the workload is so high which means our issues are not dealt with quick enough.
How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:
Eventually gets resolved, but takes a lot of effort on our part. Multiple emails and phone calls. Pace is extremely slow.
