WhatHouse? On Tour: Springfield Park, Maidstone

The WhatHouse? team visited Maidstone in Kent to see new apartment blocks taking shape at Weston Homes’ Springfield Park in Maidstone, Kent.

We were welcomed and shown around by Bob Weston, founder and CEO of the housebuilder which is building over 700 new homes a year in the Home Counties and East of England. We meet in the large marketing suite, where we can a look at a 3D model of the development, find out many details on an interactive screen and see first-hand the range of options available for kitchens, bathrooms and flooring.

Mr Weston tells us about the standard specification offered on all Weston Homes developments as we go around a show apartment. This housebuilder produces a number of fittings themselves in their own factories, which gives them a bespoke design and also ensures consistent high quality. One example is in the ‘Smart Bathroom’, which incorporates a mirror with lighting, a clock and de-misting features, a tap that remembers temperature and flow settings for consistency every time it is used, and showers and baths with digital controls for temperature and even run-time. There’s also lots of handy storage, which not every new build bathroom has. These are all the kind of thing we might only see in a very expensive property.

The all-important kitchen – the focus on most people’s homes, especially in open-plan apartments like these – comes with a full range of integrated appliances for no extra cost. They also have an instant boiling water tap, ceramic hobs and in-built chopping boards to give them a distinctive appearance as well as a little luxury not often seen on properties at this price.

Large windows for natural light, and built-in wardrobes to the master bedroom, are another standard for each of the apartments here. There’s a combination of practicality and character in features such as flooring and tiling, door handles and security which give these properties a distinctive ‘feel’ and the variety of options that a buyer can choose from mean that each one can be quite different from its neighbour in many ways in details such as colours and textures.

From here we take a look at one of the blocks at the very early stage of construction, but Mr Weston tells us that completion is particularly speedy as there are things such as bathroom units and balconies which are pre-built and quality-checked before delivery and installation on the site.

Work is well underway here, and when complete there will be 502 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments with allocated parking. The M20 is only four minutes’ drive away, the M25 about 20 minutes away, and Maidstone is well connected to places like the Medway towns, Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells. By rail, Maidstone East has regular services to London (about an hour) and Ashford International (half-an-hour) and is only 15 minutes from Springfield Park on foot.

One- and two-bedroom apartments currently start at £199,000 and £236,000 respectively. For a limited time, there’s an offer for those making a reservation on most units in The Creswick building, where Weston Homes will make a contribution of Stamp Duty. Those climbing onto the property ladder for the first time can ask about the housebuilder's own First Time Secure-Buy initiative.

Find out more at www.weston-homes.com/springfield-park/ or call 01622 826140. To take a first-hand look as we did, the marketing suite is open seven days a week from 10.00am to 5.00pm.

Please tell them you heard about the homes here through Whathouse.com

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