Overflow fears at new development
New flats belonging to Shanly Homes have come under fire as residents say they face parking struggles and issues with communal areas.
Amber Place, in Oldfield Road, contains 67 flats. People began moving there in 2021.
Gabor Suranyi, who lives in the building, has noted several problems since he moved in then – which continue to go on.
He noted ‘hanging electric wires,’ a mix up with the heating system and an issue with the door that meant it is possible to accidentally lock out other tenants with keys.
One door also ‘basically couldn’t close’ for six months, he said.
“Most of the things get resolved but you have to wait for
months for the smallest thing,” said Gabor.
Though he has no qualms with his flat itself, ‘the communal areas are in a constant state of disrepair,’ Gabor said.
But the main issue, he says, is with the parking and a lack of guest parking bays – although Shanly says the number of spaces at Amber Place is ‘in accordance with planning granted’.
All neighbouring streets are either permit only, or double yellow lined, says Gabor – so without enough visitor parking, there is risk of overflow.
“We are about to annoy the neighbouring road, Oldacres,” he said. “Some of our residents have started to park on that street because there is nowhere else to park.”
“The residents of Oldacres specifically complained about lack of parking for the new estate during the planning process. They already started to see some residents use this road as overflow parking.
“If a tradesperson comes by, they either have to park three minutes away or park wherever they can.”
With all these issues, Amber Place residents are ‘all getting pretty fed up’, Gabor added.
A spokesperson for Shanly Homes said ‘all concerns… are logged by our customer care team and a path to resolution determined.’
“On occasion remedial works do take longer than the residents, or we, would like,” the spokesperson said.
“This is usually because of supply-chain lead time – and regrettably this has happened once or twice at Amber Place.
“Unfortunately, there have also been occurrences of damage within the communal areas to the building which we have attended to promptly.”
The spokesperson added that Shanly’s building management company inspected the communal areas ‘thoroughly’ in March and they were ‘not found to be in a state of disrepair’.
At present, there ‘are minimal outstanding issues’ at Amber Place which its customer care team is ‘working to resolve’, the spokesperson said.