The Fairways Retirement Village, SN15

Design is very good, has the feeling of a community. Facilities are great, plenty of activities. Staff and manager are excellent they take time to listen. Property management is a different thing, very very slow in doing repairs In communal areas. Great

Excellent modern apartments. Excellent cleaning and hygene by staff. Good facilities, free to access at all times, including Gym, swimming pool, Snooker, table tennis, cinema ,art room, library. Good maintenance programme. Minibus available twice daily to go to town, doctors' appointments etc. Excellent security.

The design of the development is fine although the high atrium and the glass roof are difficult to maintain and I don't believe it has been cleaned inside or out once in its lifetime. The apartments are also well designed and allow good privacy and very little noise disturbance. On the downside, the windows are not well fitted and sealed and we suspect that the insulation is below regulation standard. Our electricity bill is over £1,500 per annum for a 1,200 square ft apartment. The outside of the building has just been cleaned and repainted for the first time which would be about 7 years since development. Considering the contingency charges of 1% of resale value per annum per 76 apartments for 10 years, there must be a huge amount (actual and accrued) in the contingency fund, so we should expect a much better maintenance regime in this respect. Bearing in mind that very few residents will stay longer than 10 years and each new resident restarts the clock for 1% per annum etc. Estimate.... Average resale price per apartment £200,000 x 76 Apartments = £15.2 Million x 1% = £152,000 per annum.........X 7 years (to date) = £1,064,000. That is a very healthy Contingency Fund The building roof outside our apartment has a leak and it has been there for the three + years we have lived here. The Management at MHA head office are not accessible and the onsite management has been poor. The first Manager had two office administrators and were very helpful and personable people. They worked with residents to make the scheme atmosphere pleasant for all of us. The only downside we can say is that they were not very good at selecting trades people to maintain services. Then, when the Manager was replaced by a person who distanced herself from the residents as much as possible and hid away in her newly constructed private office with her dog! And now, several valuable staff members have left. There is one person in the admin office and apparently we now share a scheme manager with two other MHA homes.