In terms of the design of the development; the houses and open spaces are well thought out and well executed, we’re extremely happy with our home, communal garden, and other open spaces. I would overall recommend this development to anyone looking to move here, that being said there are some small inconveniences that you might need to be aware of.
I think practicality is not always the designers priority, for example not providing enough bins for the communal bin store and allocating codes seemingly at random to an illogical number of residents (too many people to too few bins). Vehicle access has not been provided to the communal garden for residents with parking spaces in front of their houses, this could be an issue in the future for renovation/window cleaning/furniture moving. The bin stores were badly maintained when we first moved in and only through community action has the issue been rectified. The gates on the bin stores are often broken and slow to be fixed. The names of the road are extremely similar (South Loop Park, South Loop Square, South Loop Green) and the road layout is new and confusing, this has led to a lot of delivery drivers/deliveries going to the wrong houses. In terms of building management and property management, for example snagging, the ultimate outcomes have been satisfactory but the communication between the residents, Urban Splash, and other contractors has been abysmal. All of the members of staff seem to be trying to do their best but are overloaded with work. For example sub contractors/builders will arrive at random to fix snags, there are quirks to the houses that the builders know about and have informed Urban Splash of but these messages never make it to the home owners, there’s little to no information on who to contact when an issue arises. Hopefully these are all just teething problems that will be worked out in further phases. A community meeting has been scheduled which will allow us to rectify some of these complaints.
As stated above, we love our home, the community, and the development as a whole but the little things are a tad bit annoying.
Please tell us what you like and dislike about this area:
Close to medium sized Tesco and Morisons by car, within about 15 minutes walk to Lidl and small road of shops, no shops extremely close by but this likely to change as the development grows. Only 15-20 minutes walk along the canal from Brindley place which has a wide selection of restaurants and bars, good availability of takeaway from city centre. Lots of open spaces, mini park in the development itself, about 5 minutes walk to Edgbaston reservoir and immediate access to canal. Transport links are slightly limited, the most useful public transport is the number 80 bus that can get you into New Street via Five ways in 25 minutes but this is the only bus that services the immediate area. In terms of living on my street, it’s a very quiet area as the development is in it’s early phases, no through traffic as the main road leads to the canal. Occasionally late at night you can hear boy races going along the larger adjoining roads but it’s mostly background noise. Parking availability is moderate, guest spaces are provided but limited and can fill up quickly on weekends. Currently cars can be parked on the main road (Icknield port road) but I have a suspicion that when more of the development is completed yellow lines could be added. There is no on street parking in front of the current houses, some houses have room for 1 or 2 cars on their driveway. In terms of anti-social behaviour there have been some instances of fly-tipping near the entrance to the canal and building site but they have been dealt with quickly by the council. I do also think that the entrance to the canal leads to non-residents often walking through the development to get there, groups of youths often frequent the area but my neighbours and I haven’t had any issues currently. Bin collections are every two weeks and on the part of the council there have been no problems.
Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:
With Urban splash there’s a 10 day period to report initial snags which will be rectified as soon as possible. We delayed moving in by a week, even though we had a snag inspector we still missed a lot of small defects which won’t likely be fixed until the end of the 2 year snagging period. I would recommend moving in on or very near your completion date and living in the space to note down all the small issues you can find.
How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:
Snags can be raised on an online system, while emergency issues can be called in. Snags have been slowly corrected but this is understandable with dozens of new houses being completed. Our kitchen tap sprung a leak in a connecting part (a part failure or installation issue) and was dealt with in that same week as an semi – emergency.
