South Quay Plaza, E14

After living there for almost 2 years, it's clear that was overpaying. Cons: The build quality is poor, and the heating and cooling system is dodgy, which means I'm forced to pay for it even when I'm not using it (!!!) – The heating, hot water, and cooling systems are a rip-off because you have to pay for them on top of your energy bills. Also, it takes time to top up, which means you could be out of hot water for hours while it's being processed (isn't it insane :o lol). You also have to pay for cooling, even in winter. Unfortunately, the corridors are almost never cleaned, and the windows are always extremely dirty, lifts don't work very often; The refuse chute is always broken, and a permanent collection of trash smells very bad. The spa and pool are worn out very quickly, and the steam room is broken all the time. The staff is super nice but overstaffed and useless. The management is clueless and unable to help with any issues. Even though the level 56 facilities are nice, accessing them is impossible if you're working. The cinema system is often broken. Additionally, the cracking sound in the flat caused by the wind was insane. It was definitely stronger than in most of the towers I've ever lived in. Given that it's very windy in Canary Wharf in general, the cracking noise was a very common occurrence in the flat :( What made me move out was the smell of food from the pizza restaurant downstairs that has recently opened. Even with the windows closed the smell was so strong in my flat (16th floor) and even in the lobby of the building, no one seems to care despite the complaints. Pros: Some pros of my living situation were the design of the flat, which I found to be aesthetically pleasing. The view of Canary Wharf from my flat was also cool. Another nice aspect of the building was that it was brand new. I enjoyed the facilities that were available anytime, I loved the gym that was available almost 24/7. So after +– 2 years, the building has become very tacky and cheap.

Design is lovely aesthetically, but the WIND NOISE makes it impossible to genuinely enjoy the property during winter months. I have been woken up by extremely loud and persistent creaking at 3 - 4am in the morning. It happens throughout the day too, but the nights are the worst. I have ear plugs permanently next to my bed in an attempt to sleep, but sometimes, that does not even work. We all pay a premium to live here - we should not be constantly disturbed due to poor structural design. When brought up with with management, they are incredibly dismissive and say it's a common feature for all high-rise buildings but NO - not to this EXTREME degree. It is very, very loud and nothing can apparently be done. At the very least, I should be able to sleep in my flat.

I’ve been staying in a one bedroom flat in SQP for almost 2 years. Perfect location, nice facilities, flat facing gorgeous river and beautiful bank headquarters. Meeting many of the friendly and kind neighbours. Very much enjoy staying in SQP and would highly recommend it.

The smart meters are pre installed in the flat and there’s rarely snagging issues after completion and which means it’s ready to live or let without big issues. The residential only private club serves wine and wonderful facilities in 5 stars hotels standard. The hygiene and cleaning team does a great job as always.

I have previously left a 4-star review, posted in July 2021, you can see it here: Since then, my opinion of the development has gotten worse and worse. Here are some of the issues, in no particular order. Wind noise Already mentioned in the previous review, the loud creaking whenever there's wind outside is still very bad, and there's nothing to be done to change it. The absolute minimum that a "place to live" should accomplish is to be able to sleep there. On average, something like 1-2 days per month, depending on how well you sleep, sleeping is somewhere between pretty hard and impossible, so I'd say it doesn't really meet that requirement. Heating The heating system is extraordinarily bad. Here's a quote from the official "SQP Living Guide": "The system is capable of heating the apartment to a maximum of 18 - 21°C." Ignoring that this is very low, we've asked what specifically does this mean, since it's such a wide range. We were told that the system is designed to reach "at least 18°C in the bedroom and 21°C in the living room when the outside temperature is -4°C". Make your own decisions whether you think that is acceptable or not. Some residents indeed can't lift the temperature above 20°C even when there's 10°C outside, but it varies by flat quite a lot. For what it's worth, we are among the lucky ones; we can reach about 22 - 22.3°C in the bedroom, but with the curtains closed! With them open, the max is around 21-21.5°C. The price of the heating is another related issue; we pay 90+ GBP per month on heating a 1-bedroom flat to ~22°C in winter (7°C+ outside). Again, we are among the lucky ones, some people pay 400+ GBP per month! Lifts There's some serious issues with the lifts that have been happening for a while now. I'd say at least once per week, we wait for a ridiculous time for a lift to come (sometimes 5 min, and I've heard of 10+ min). Note that this is usually NOT because the lifts are too crowded; you can see where each of them are, and you can see up to 2 of them are stationary, while a single lift is doing all the work. There are 6 lifts in the building. As I am writing this, 2 lifts are "out of service", and one is "priority service" (can't be used by residents). It's not uncommon to see 2 lifts on "priority service", leaving 2 lifts to serve the entire building, but the lift scheduling algorithm is also noticeably optimized for cutting costs, at the expense of (sometimes) a very large waiting time. Each floor has 2 sets of buttons for calling the lifts (on opposite sides). Somewhat recently, for two consecutive days, one of the sides was not working AT ALL. You would press the button to call a lift, and it would simply ignore the command. This seems innocent, you could just use the other side, right? Well, you would if you knew that. MANY people assumed that the lifts are entirely out of order and took the stairs, and there was absolutely no message NOR apology from the building management. Keep in mind that they send an "important notification" any time it's windy outside (even though people know this immediately; I mean, the noise is ridiculous...), but the lift panels not working is not deemed important enough. Window cleaning If you want to be able to see anything through your windows (other than mud), don't even consider this development. Any time you ask about it, you'll be told some silly excuse, and that window cleaning is going to be happening "soon" or "in a couple weeks". You really don't want to see photos of the residents' windows... You literally cannot trust anything the building management says, other than when they tell you that something's not working... There's many other minor issues (by comparison), or some that don't affect us (e.g. parking), but I'll choose to ignore them and instead also point out some positives: - Everything looks really good; The flats, the building hallways, the gym, everything. If you try really hard, you might find some cost-cutting, but if you want a nice looking place, this is definitely one of them. - The gym is large and pretty well equipped; unless you are a body builder or require something very specific, you'll most likely find everything you need. The pool and spa area are quite nice too. - The flats are spacious and quite well compartmented (i.e. you have reasonable storage space) compared to similar flats in the area