Several years ago, Adrian Lightfoot and his wife Eleanor, bought a 1950s property in Burnham. “it provided us with a wonderful opportunity” says Adrian “to add value through renovation and extending the accommodation.” After several months, the hard work and effort paid off but the hassle and strain of project managing and undertaking work had had taken its toll and when it came to moving home again, the Lightfoot’s concentrated their search on new developments. New build properties hold the promise of being low maintenance and cost effective – elements which appealed to the couple. “We decided we simply didn’t want to go through the inevitable upheaval, stress and cost that comes with undertaking work in a home.”
But, finding a new build home which fulfilled their criteria was not as easy as the Lightfoot’s had anticipated. The couple spent the next 6 months juggling their time between family, friends and abroad before, under pressure to find their next home, settled upon buying a linked detached three bedroom home in Wokingham from a leading residential developer with 50 years’ experience in the market. “From the outset, it was a total disaster” says Adrian. “As a location, Wokingham worked really well for my commute to Reading (Adrian is a sales manager at Harley Davidson) and Eleanor’s commute to Slough but that was about it. The house was too small for our needs and the attitude of the staff in everything from the site to sales and after care was impersonal. We had bought in haste and were regretting our decision at leisure.”
At the same time that Adrian and Eleanor were repenting their house purchase, Eleanor’s parents were in the process of buying a brand new home from developer Bewley Homes at Cavendish Park. “My parent’s in law had the polar opposite experience to us” says Adrian “and exactly the sort of experience we had hoped for ourselves. From the moment we saw their Bewley home – the setting, the standard of construction and the well planned and executed internal layout, we realised that not all housebuilders are the same.
“There is a lot of construction currently being undertaken by a myriad of developers in and around the Wokingham area and our experience, coupled with that of my parents in law, highlighted to us, the importance of seeing every development in order to make an informed decision about what distinguishes one over another.”
It was actually Eleanor’s father that found Oakham Park and took it upon himself to visit the development on behalf of his daughter and son in-law. “We got home from work one night and Robin said, you have got to go and see the new Bewley Homes development in Crowthorne. From the second we visited Oakham Park, we knew it was right for us” says Adrian. “There was a wide choice of house type across a range of budgets which meant we had plenty of choice. Through my parent in law’s purchase, we had come to know the standard of construction and specification for which the Bewley brand stands and this was evident in abundance at Oakham Park. We had also become familiar with the high level of professionalism and attentive service from site and sales staff. In fact it is the way in which Bewley dealt with us, combined with their meticulous attention to detail and high standards that were the defining reasons for us purchasing at Oakham Park. We bought a 4 bedroom Nightingale which has proved to be ideal for us and our two dogs – Mr T (a 50kg Boxer) and Guado (a 30kg British bull dog) – and the dedicated woodland area within the development is an ideal space to walk them. Buying Bewley is one of the best decision’s we’ve ever made and we will never look back.”