I’m suspicious of all the positive reviews that popped up around October 2022, which is when The Kell hired a new building manager, who offered tenants some posh biscuits in exchange for a positive review on this very website.
In short, The Kell is very over-priced, poorly managed – both by the on-site team and the head office – poorly built and thoroughly disappointing. If you’re considering a move here – I’d reconsider another of the many residential developments that have popped up in the area.
We moved in last year, as the first tenants to live in our flat.
When we arrived, everything seemed like it was relatively well built and of semi-decent quality for a build-to-rent property. However, more than a year down the line – as I write this review, we still live here but will be leaving the moment our tenancy ends – things aren’t faring too well, and the apartments are starting to show their age already.
We’ve seen other apartments that have since been vacated, and they look like they’ve been lived in for decades – not occupied for less than two years. Keep this in mind if you’re planning a move here, as the management team don’t appear to spruce them up before new people move in. The finishes in the kitchen, bathroom(s) and bedrooms are terrible (bad paintwork etc.) – and extremely low quality.
The bathrooms are poorly designed.
The on-site management team don’t seem to stay for long, so no long term issues get sorted. The staff we’ve encountered have either been rude, de-motivated or lazy. Some of them tick all three of those boxes.
It takes ages to get legitimate issues sorted – that’s if they get sorted at all.
Annoyingly, with maintenance issues, we’ve reported, we hear nothing for several days, and then without any notice whatsoever, we get workmen turning up at bizarre times to attempt to fix whatever the issue is. However, more often than not they’ve sent an electrician to do a plumbers job, so the problem doesn’t get fixed anyway.
The only staff members that have been consistent since we’ve lived here are the cleaners, and they do a fairly decent job and are often here on Sundays doing their best. However, the management could probably do well to hire a few more cleaners, as there is a skeleton staff expected to clean 14 floors across two buildings.
Way Of Life itself are a bit of a dire company – the head office staff we have dealt with tend to pay lip service to issues raised. Their other properties are a bit more glamorous – and probably more proftiable than The Kell – so I suspect they don’t much care what happens here, which is probably why they don’t give it the resources it needs.
The building is advertised as Pet-Friendly – although you are charged extra if you want them to live here. However, there are a tenants here who don’t seem to like dogs – and are often quite vocal about it. Perhaps when conducting viewings, it’s wise to mention to potential tenants that people here have dogs / cats / birds and if they’re not comfortable, perhaps it’s not a good idea to live in a so-called pet-friendly building. Though I guess it’s hard to be honest with people if it’s going to harm the bottom line.
The Kell is also close to Asda – which again presents its own problems, as some tenants like to bring their trollies home and leave them outside. One would assume this building and the adjacent development would have some agreement with Asda to make sure they collect their trollies. But no. This does further cheapen the area, and becomes hazardous when they block doorways etc.
There’s also a bit of a drug problem in the building – predominantly weed (and the people here smoke the cheap stuff, so it absolutely stinks) and previous tenants have mentioned they’ve left because of this, especially those with kids.
Your apartment will come with “high speed” internet – however, it’s notoriously unreliable and often goes down for hours and hours on end. The current building manager refuses to accept responsibility for the WiFi… this comes despite the fact it’s being provided (by Freshwave) as a utility in the same way as, say the white goods.
Unfortunately, I don’t really have anything positive to say about The Kell – other than its close proximity to London makes it easy to get away from.
Please tell us what you like and dislike about this area:
Close to Asda and Lidl, which makes the weekly shop nice and convenient.
However, overall, Gillingham/Chatham is quite a deprived, run-down area, despite regeneration efforts that have been going on for decades, but with little progress.
So it’s kind of akin to living in a very overpriced council estate. I have nothing against council estates – however, I certainly wouldn’t pay almost £2k a month to live in one.
Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:
We were initially told that they would be selective about the tenants they allowed to rent here, but that doesn’t seem to be the case – hence the drug problems, loud neighbours. I live here with my family, but above us are some extremely loud students who constantly move furniture around at 3 am, and generally make things even more unpleasant. We have raised this to the building manager, but again – more tumbleweed.
How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:
Some issues are resolved, but often slowly. Some issues – especially the long-term stuff – gets ignored or forgotten about as the on-site staff don’t stay around for long.
