There is a bit of building which has been going on for a while in Broadfield Park. Not the park itself, but the land next to it which used to be a council depot. The developers have decided to call it Highwood Park. Having had some input to the design brief, chaired the committee which gave it permission, and living nearby so I have to go past it nearly every day, when I saw that the ‘marketing suite’ was open I could not resist going in for a bit of a poke around.

First impressions were that it looks like a pleasant enough development, albeit identical to just about every other one of a similar scale anywhere in the country. There are 25 units up for sale and a block of flats for affordable housing through the Moat Housing Group.

The relationship between the new houses and the existing ones in Vulcan Close is a bit of a worry, but we always knew it would be. This is partly because the places in Vulcan close were built with such tiny back gardens. We were assured at the time of the application that there would be screening, and that will not happen until everything is finished, but it is a concern. If I remember rightly the distances involved were very close to the minimum allowable.

The other concern at the time was about having a junction onto Woodmans Hill, which is a busy road at the best of times, with cars going far too fast. As you leave the new development the visibility uphill is poor – you can only see as far as the brow of the hill over which cars come at a fair pace. Visibility downhill is better, but there is a bend. One of the conditions of the permission was to put in traffic calming, and having seen what its like pulling out of there today I can confirm its really necessary. I think I might enquire about this to make sure it really is going to happen before the places are occupied.

As for the houses themselves, they look OK from the outside, but are tiny inside, and enormously over-priced. The show house was a three-bedroomed detached house which is priced at £300,000. The semi-detached next door is priced at £265,000 and is even smaller. Both the gardens were minute. At the moment the two gardens are combined so punters can get to the second house, and the combined garden looks a bit pokey. When they are separated it will be even worse.

I was amused to see that the bedrooms of these show houses featured the special 4/5th scale models of beds instead of real beds, to make the rooms look larger. I can’t believe that we are expected to not notice that a bed is only 5-feet long. I can see why they do it, as a proper bed would have left no room at the end to walk around.

Overall, I felt that you would really not get a lot for your money. These are not family homes in my opinion. Maybe a couple with one child could get by, but any more than that would be crowded. Here are a couple of photos of the interior to show what you get for £265,000 these days. (Bear in mind this is a three-bedroomed house and I was jammed against the wall to take these. Photos are of a “Wren” house, with this floor plan)