Redrow - Kingsley Park at Arborfield Green, Berkshire

Beautiful place and kids friendly

After sales support... when things need to be put right. Many e-mail exchanges and sometimes no acknowledgement. A lot of chasing up from my part. Some issues ongoing. Most things addressed but with major delays and inconvenience i.e. turning up when we’re not in or not keeping to agreed timelines e.g. say they would be in touch but haven’t bothered. A few things outstanding. Site managers acknowledge problems and make promises to fix things but later back track on promises as their hands are tied by customer service. House snagged and over 400 faults found but nothing overly concerning i.e. no serious defects in foundations, insulation, plumbing and, electrics. However, one major issue with the Warwick type homes is that the plans are shoddy. The front door lock latches catch the entrance wall and cause damage to it. Their own workers damaged the wall twice and it had to be plastered and painted again. This is a major inconvenience as it only takes one careless worker or visitor who is unaware to destroy an entrance wall e.g. when closing the door or trying to keep it open. Based on this you should think carefully whether a Warwick is for you because Redrow refuse to correct it. The exterior of the property is not well thought out either. Some drives are wide and some so narrow you can only open one door on a large saloon type car or estate. Some two door cars may also struggle. Some properties also have a front lawn. However, there is no fencing and thus inconsiderate and incompetent drivers drive over the lawns. The site maintenance company are priced above average. The cost should cover the upkeep of front lawns but it does not. The company are approachable but can only do so much about issues such as inconsiderate drivers parking on the road. Despite strict rules in place clearly stating that homeowners are supposed to park on their designated drives and visitors to use designated parking bays, apartment people think Visitor bay means ‘very long stay.’ Tandem driveway owners are getting tired of doing the car dance and it makes the site look like a council estate. Honestly distasteful for such an area. At the time of typing this the Warwick is also advertised with a hot water cylinder in the bathroom cupboard. The cupboard is a great size and provides excellent storage space. However, no hot water cylinder is provided. What does this mean? Two showers running hot water at the time are slow and almost useless. Running a kitchen tap and flushing a toilet makes the shower water go cold as the system cannot meet the hot water demands. This could possibly be improved with an upgraded boiler with higher flow rate / pump. Road signage is also yet unclear. As you enter there is some numbering but sadly for the rest of the site there is insufficient numbering and signposting. So you have several roads with same name in different directions. The entrance is also narrow so you can forget about entering the site as someone is exiting. The road to which you exit the site has an awkward angle if you are turning left and again this is a poor design. Unnecessary and avoidable but it’s all about packing those houses in! The area itself is quite nice. California Country Park is near by. As is Bearwood Park. Great for walks and dog walking. However, there are too many homes being built in this area. Over 5,000. It’s about to become traffic mayhem. For now it’s reasonable but those roads won’t be able to cope. Photos attached. The door has gaps around the edges. Narrow to bottom and wide to the middle and top. Meaning there is draft. Note the adhesive DIY draft excluder to the bottom as there was too much cold air ingress and Redrow refused to remedy this. The entrance area was cold. The other pictures show how the door lock catches the wall and how a locking claw is jammed in the wall. As said they won’t fix it. No trunking to the wall where the TV sockets are. The HDMI cables are plastered into the wall and no wires can be fed through as it’s sealed off. The house is only as good as the workers working on it.

More houses which equals more vehicles, which means busier roads.

Collection of temporary buildings.

New properties being developed

Excellent

Building site