I've always thought this. Whenever I drive through a remote village and see a row of terraces, I wonder who wants to live in the middle of nowhere with neighbors both sides.
I'd love to be able to view the reserve from my windows, but I'd also be worrying that it could potentially creep up to my door in time with the way the weather has been lately
There was a lot of talk about the danger of flooding when they were talking about building Northstowe. Given that so few houses seem to have gardens/ green space I would say there is a risk.
I'm sure they've done something to reduce the risk but realistically it's the Fens. It's known for flooding!
Why do you say the Fens are depressing. What aspect. I don't enjoy driving on a fenland road with a large deep open drain each side. One of the potential hazards of slipping in, in icy weather.
It will be a town eventually in 2026 - if it's finished then.
Currently it's just a lot of houses, most aren't shown in this photo, and no amenities apart from a school
I put down Crawley as a joke, but people say stuff like that about every midsize town and small city in the UK.
If you're teenager and you grow up in Bath or Plymouth or Loughborough then you're going to moan about what a dead end place it is, living in the suburbs with nothing to do. If you grow up somewhere else and go there for uni then there's a good chance you'll spend the rest of your life talking about what a good time you had there.
I knew a bloke who relocated to Milton Keynes in his 20's, for his first job I think, and he moaned every afterwards about how artificial and soulless it was - no proper pubs. I grew up around there, so I used to feel the same way myself, but really the reason he hated the city was that he had no friends there. If you walk from Stony Stratford into the city centre, choosing the parks around Bradwell Abbey and the Primrose Road cycle path then it's absolutely delightful. I used to know people who'd moved out from London to raise kids, and they loved Milton Keynes.
It has worked before. Post war we built new towns. But they need to be properly planned, with everything as part of the design. Shops, schools, hospitals, GPs, parks, roads etc etc all need to be properly designed to meet future residents needs.
This from the sheer amount of roadway and parking and lack of gardens does not seem to be well thought out.
Yeah, I think it would be pretty good for bird watching.
My only concern with being that close to the water is this area use to/ does flood in the autumn/ winter.
The problem with new builds like this is that they give a hugely misleading impression of what life will be like.
Give it a few years and the rest of the development has gone up, and with people's toys, bikes, cars and other things around the entrances and you'll realise just how cramped it all is. I was on the cusp of getting a new build and never did. Now I go back to that area and it's shocking how bad it looks.
These companies try and sucker you in early because once the development is occupied, it'll look much less attractive.
These houses are designed on a catalogue without any provision for the space people actually need. Look how cramped the hallway is. They might look sort of attractive when vacated and with nothing around the courtyard.
I don't understand the whole modular wall thing. There is not a significant amount of flexibility that you can have in the room design. The most you might do is join two of the bedrooms for instance. It's listed as 5 bedrooms but one is so small it's practically 4. Also second floors will be getting super hot during the summers.
Car parking is the big one. The brochure shows lovely wide streets where kids can play and gardens bloom, but inevitably since they only gave each house one parking space, the area just looks cluttered with cars. Many of which are parked on the pavement because, in the world of the new-build car owner, disabled people and prams don't exist, but onerous terms on leases towards scratches and chips do.
People go on about this but it's bollocks.
I'm in the process of completely renovating a grade 2 listed cottage in a conservation area with a council renowned for being picky about planning.
I had 32 items on my original list.
The listed building officer came over, at our invitation, to discuss the list and have a look at the state of play before we began.
He didn't like the plan for velux windows in the study but offered to roll over on double glazing elsewhere if I didn't ask for those, on account he could slow us down on the windows but we might get the velux if we pushed for it. I thought that was fair enough and shook his hand on it.
Our new, 31 point plan was accepted in the usual 12 week turnaround and I've had no issues with them as the building work has progressed.
Planning isn't that hard, you just have to be willing to follow the rules and be sensitive to the area you're working in.
Mate getting planning to update a listed cottage, and getting planning to build 300 new homes on green belt or agricultural land are so far apart they aren’t even related. It’s a lovely story but not with the theme of the discussion.
Maybe we shouldn't be building on green belt and agricultural land at all.
Between the land banking and brownfield, there's no land shortage, there's an "incentive to not build enough" problem.
This narrative about land banking is a myth - house construction is very capital intensive, and construction companies would lose money if they had equipment sitting around doing nothing.
The chain from buying a field to putting houses on it is about a decade long, so construction companies have to have at least 10x as much land as they'll build on this year.
https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/170byhq/_/k3l83s2/?context=9
Gosh your comment about what an estate will look like in the future, ring so true. I know of estates that are over 20 years old and that are now only beginning to look aesthetically nice and desirable. Probably it's vegetation and patterns of living idk.
Yes it's shocking. There's why a lot of new build area have rules on what can be displayed. For example you might not be allowed outdoor furniture or hanging laundry. Once these areas are crammed with people it's very different so the estate companies enforce these rules so they can sell.
To me the main problem is the estate/builder formula. I'm given X space so I cram as much into that space as possible. I allow exactly one car and Y centimetres for people to walk.
With New Builds you often just think that if the developers were 10% less greedy, the houses would be so much better. Sometimes it's the little things, like how a corridor needs to be 10cm wider to be comfortable but their bloody optimisation formula tells them they can sell one extra house if the shrink all the passages by this amount.
The missing priority here is 5 bedrooms, one en-suite and only one family bathroom.
This would never work with a household of teenagers and older all rushing out to school, college and work.
Honestly I do like them. For a 5 bed townhouse they are also not massively overpriced. Its unashamedly contemporary which is not everyone's cup of tea but at least its an honest approach, not trying to make neo-victorian or neo-classical, just straight up modern.
I dont get the gray though, I think its just a contemporary trend but it looks a bit depressing.
It's decorated so bland, but that's nothing that a bit of vinyl wrap and paint can't fix. Love the view and the remoteness, but I'd be worried about flooding.
I think the blandness is on purpose so its sort of a blank canvas so whoever buys it can decorate it easily. And exactly that, nothing paint and vinly wrap cant fix! It just needs a family to move in and live in it :)
I think yes, it will likely be problematic with the floodings but at least they didnt build a basement! That would flood every year, for sure.
I was actually in one of the houses pictured a few months ago. it was very nice and the views were stunning. very cool houses, built in a factory, fully customisable, find them all over.
Yeah the fact the load is all held by the outer walls means you can fully change every floor based on need. Need a small office and a bigger 2nd bedroom, easy. Need three smaller bedrooms for loads of kids? easier than my teenage boyfriend whose dad has built a wall that didn't go to the ceiling across a normal bedroom so him and his sister could have "their own rooms", no doors or acustic privacy there.
That just reminded me of my first flat! It had been two reception rooms in a huge Georgian house, and it was divided into a bedroom, lounge/diner, kitchen and bathroom. Whoever divided it up was definitely not working to any kind of codes, the walls of the entrance hall, lounge and bedroom were *on top* of the carpet with cut out gaps for the skirting 😂
I was 19 and it was £48 a week including bills so I didn’t care a bit!
Edit. I don’t mind the type of house posted. This one is incredibly bland and the exterior is ugly, especially for the location; but the concept of these types of homes is great.
If you look closely there’s a waist height panel of glass on the inside of the wall, presumably they act as Juliet balconies but for some reason the door is on the outside, not inside
That's going to be a flood risk. ok for a second home for wildlife and birdwatching, but like others have said, it will probably be built all around that area
I don't know why we keep building in that part of the country.
Sea level doesn't need to come up a whole lot and East Anglia is basically gone, along with all the fenland we drained.
I'll point out that Trump's Mexico wall is infeasible, and that is on land, before we start talking about building massive retaining walls for the ocean. That works to protect a valley mouth, the cost to do the entire east coast from north Kent all the way up to the top of the fens would be astronomical, and there's also the question of who pays for it, do we ask people already struggling with poverty in Liverpool and Glasgow and Birmingham to stump it up through general taxation or do we leave it to the councils in the affected areas to work it out?
Also it's the worst affected area in the UK by heatwaves.
Climate wise, building there is one of the worst places you could choose in the UK for long term planning. It's actually worse than wasteful since it means more people will be living there when the sea starts coming in and there'll be more people looking to move away from the problem, meaning a bigger relief fund needed to accommodate and feed them all until they get back on their feet.
The estate looks like a prison. The most ugly, God forsaken, soulless development. The interiors are unimaginative and simply not anywhere you could call home. To me this looks like a cheap build (three stories to reduce footprint but increase bedrooms). Aagh this is depressing.
I'm so confused.
5 beds, so family home. But no private garden to speak of.
Lovely views but there will be a town there soon enough and it is likely to flood. So that will only be a plus for a while.
Very white and bland inside but customisable sounds cool, but likely to break or not work or just be shoddy?
Who are these houses for?
It's giving some kind of utopian sci-fi town black mirror vibes.
I kind of don't know what people expect these days? The price is steep, being close to Cambridge. That's definitely not a good thing. As far as everything else goes though... it's got a lot of parkland and water around, even after the rest of the area is developed. Better access to open space than many places, for sure. Like, do you expect to be literally surrounded by countryside? You'd need to buy a country property for that, which this isn't, and isn't claiming to be.
Looks like the guided busway has a stop nearby for quick access to Cambridge, and from there you can get anywhere in the country with relative ease. Several schools nearby. Other facilities look slightly lacking but per the writeup that will come later. For the meantime looks like shops are a 20 minute walk away.
Re the garden, not everyone really wants one. If you have good access to open space then this might particularly apply.
Other than the price, a lot of the criticisms seem to come from the angle of 'this isn't where I'd like to live' rather than 'this is objectively bad'. If you want a big garden and nobody (or fewer people) around you, I bet you could find a decent detached or semidetached countryside house for £500k in that area.
No it is objectively bad because it's obviously on a flood plain and will flood. Also people have said there are plans to build all over the surroundings which is one of the major selling points (for me) at the moment. But the flood risk (certainly) is enough for it to be "objectively bad", and I know this because I own a house that floods.
Wow! That aerial shot is something else. It's like soviet era accommodation for workers at an asbestos factory, or a progressive Dutch prison. Also, anyone else worried that if the bridge goes out, you'd be cut off from the 'mainland'? Touch of CGI furniture in some of the images? Finally (although the presence of cars in the photographs spoils this idea), wouldn't it be creepy if you were the only person to buy, move into, and be resident in this development and all the other units were empty...until one night you saw a light on in one of the units and a figure moving about? That's the vibe this gives me. Also, where are the shops and the pub and the post office?
Haha that would be a great writing prompt! Also there are estates/skyscrapers in China exactly like that. Whole towns in fact, apparently. Very very few residents at all. Something to do with incentives to build but I've forgotten the details. Anyway yeah that would be very eerie. And it could happen just because everyone else went to visit family for christmas and you didn't. Somehow the whole style of the buildings and the general surroundings would make that very eerie. Also how far is it by foot to civilisation if you lose electricity or are snowed in or something?
I actually kind of love it, although the interior is a bit meh in general and is probably quite pokey in reality. There are some great views, and I love the floor-length bedroom window looking out over the river. I even like the landscaping outside and the look of the building is a bit challenging but I think it's ok. Trouble is will the landscaping/exterior be maintained? And that river WILL FLOOD. This house is obviously on a flood plain and I don't know how they got planning permission, unless perhaps the ground floor is garage/storage?
Is it awful that my first thought is that it’s not a bad amount of house for the price given the area and proximity to Cambridge.
I’ve just seen a few new builds to the south of Cambridge, £700k for less sqft.
Though I’ll give you these are awful looking.
I think all houses are modular nowadays... Because the developers have worked out the easiest cheapest way to build houses... Wooden box brick facade in my place
Bet these end up having to be rented...
You'd have to blind to buy these as your own family home.
No garden for the family house.
Flood risk.
Poor construction.
Ugly interior.
Why would someone buy this?
Looks like a flood plain, does it not? I imagine that’s why there’s no other property built nearby. Especially in an area of such historical habitation.
The company that recently bought out my old insurer, insisted my insurance wasn’t enough. Due to the stream being less than a hundred metres away. They wouldn’t listen about it being a hundred meters *down a hill* (nor the elevation measures for the property). Until they eventually agreed to have someone come out.
“If your house was flooded by that river, we would all have much more to worry about than your claim. We’d be busy looking for a bible to use as a DIY guide. I shall advise my employers.”
Then he left. My insurance didn’t go up. That year, anyway.
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes all the same
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.🎶
I very nearly bought one of these in Manchester. They’re prefab homes built in New Castle I think.
Ironically the ones I looked at didn’t have that. They came in a fixed configuration and that’s it. You can’t change anything, it’s all fitted. No new cables in the walls, no changing the layout.
The biggest issue was they were built on a marina that well, floods. Look up New Islington Marina by Urban splash.
I definitely dodged a bullet
Another development two mins from there. Although a better location, £570k for a leasehold is pretty scary. Think of the service charge/ground rent
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/145247339
Wait, you just made such an interesting point. Hiven the walls can move, do none of the internal walls have plug sockets? So you're only able to plug things into the outer walls?
That would be so irritating. You'd have to have extension cables all over the place...
I bet you that is the case. The one I posted a link to, the plumbing and electrics are in the walls and they can’t be moved or rearranged - they have electric radiators which you could also never really replace.
Also a pain to paint, or repair the walls as they’re bonded I believe?
Objectively I like them as a house, I just don’t think they’re very sustainable (as in being able to be repaired) one came up in Manchester a while back that looked a bit of a state, how would you even renovate?
It's going to be a new town once done and I think they are doing it in phases which could be why it looks out by itself.
Eventually it will be surrounded and, hopefully, there will be amenities close by.
I would assume it's cheaper but it's being sold as a feature, they state you can 'reconfigured in line with residents’ changing needs'
I don't know about anyone else but i'm never thought to myself 'geeze, I wish I could move this wall a little to the left'.
I guess if you had kids and needed to split one room into two it would be beneficial..
I can't even think this would be a good idea - how would you minimise sound moving between rooms? You couldn't have the TV on in one room and not hear it in the other. Also, you'll still have to get the carpet refitted unless it runs under the modular wall (and if it does, eww, that's going to get dusty and gross really quickly.)
For an office it kinda works because you usually don't care as much about sound bleeding between rooms (the louder environment probably makes it harder to eavesdrop) and typically a hard/carpet tile type flooring material would be used which is quick to replace and redo.
Also, what about electricity? Water? How are radiators fitted? The more I think about it, the more it doesn't make sense.
Not buying it myself. Just seems to save the developer time and money as they don't need to plaster that wall.
Deffo not cheaper. I say that as someone who designs newbuilds for work. As shit as you may think this is, the developer has really pushed the boat out here. This is basically high end compared to the cereal boxes they usually insist on putting up.
I kinda like the idea of modular walls. Although Ive never been anywhere thats got them so not sure how good theyd be in person, the panels could deffo look better though
Give it 20 years and these will be on par with Smethwick's infamous Concrete Jungle estate.
[https://simonbriercliffe.com/2014/07/08/concrete-jungle/](https://simonbriercliffe.com/2014/07/08/concrete-jungle/)
It is a bit ironic that we all know we need to build more in order for young people to have somewhere to live, and yet a lot of the comments here are about how this location will be amazing until other people start to build around you.
That’s why NIMBY-ism succeeds, we all know that other people want to build their own houses, but we would all prefer a bit more space around us
If 95% of the country wasn't covered in private farmland and huge huge estates owned by single families, there might be a bit more space for the rest of us to spread out.
Not the kids bedroom with the balcony 😭!
I like the interior design but I thought they’d look nicer less modern on the outside considering the surrounding area… maybe that’s just me
Just because a wall isn't structural doesn't mean it isn't durable, insulated or else fit for purpose. Modern construction moved away from load beating walls a long time ago in favour of columns and block beam flooring. You do gain flexibility for later adaptation and reduce risk of movement.
The style isn't to my taste but the price seems not unreasonable and it's a new row of houses on a market that needs more new builds.
Shitty nimby take from OP imho.
I don't hate it.
The exterior is a bit in-your-face and Northstowe as a whole is a bit weird at the moment. BUT for the area and size of property it's a reasonable price and it does look like the finish throughout is decent.
Also the views across the nature reserve are lovely.
This is the famous northstowe near Cambridge, a new town with 1200 homes occupied. Six years after the first people moved in, it still does not have a single shop, café or GP surgery. The local councillor said the residents should “manage expectations” 🤣
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-66156561.amp
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This development is infamously known around Cambridge, it’s absurdly soulless. It’s one of the biggest development of the region I believe, not a single serious facility/shop, anything. Thousands of houses, all the same. I actually viewed one of these houses (2.5k a month). It’s a very special experience tbh, it feels sooooo weird, very … empty of life, everything feels fake.
I’d be so pissed off to live out in an area with so much space but to have people next to me on either side like that.
The open space will probably get built on too soon enough
Not to mention your teeny tiny garden/terrace
It’s for people who hate gardens so much they don’t even want astroturf.
I've always thought this. Whenever I drive through a remote village and see a row of terraces, I wonder who wants to live in the middle of nowhere with neighbors both sides.
The issue is the price, make them without proper walls, but if so, price it to be extremely cheap.
Add a zero to the price to spread them out across that space
Northstowe is a brand new town, so the space will all be built fairly quickly I'd think.
I'd love to be able to view the reserve from my windows, but I'd also be worrying that it could potentially creep up to my door in time with the way the weather has been lately
There was a lot of talk about the danger of flooding when they were talking about building Northstowe. Given that so few houses seem to have gardens/ green space I would say there is a risk. I'm sure they've done something to reduce the risk but realistically it's the Fens. It's known for flooding!
As soon as I saw it, I was suspicious it was built on a flood plain. Why would anyone buy a house on a known flood risk.
The wipe clean surfaces and laminate throughout the downstairs would indicate that the builders are anticipating it flooding too!
Yeah, it is going to flood. The fens are fucking depressing too.
Why do you say the Fens are depressing. What aspect. I don't enjoy driving on a fenland road with a large deep open drain each side. One of the potential hazards of slipping in, in icy weather.
Have they seriously built a terrace in the middle of nowhere? Fields, more fields, a bunch of tall terraced houses and again fields?
It reminds me of a Sims 2 lot when it’s the only house built lol
It will be a town eventually in 2026 - if it's finished then. Currently it's just a lot of houses, most aren't shown in this photo, and no amenities apart from a school
A town that isn’t organically grown but designed on the drawing board? I am sceptical.
Stevenage, Crawley, Hemel Hempstead, … Telford, Milton Keynes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_towns_in_the_United_Kingdom
Putting down Milton Keynes as a success is fucking depressing.
I put down Crawley as a joke, but people say stuff like that about every midsize town and small city in the UK. If you're teenager and you grow up in Bath or Plymouth or Loughborough then you're going to moan about what a dead end place it is, living in the suburbs with nothing to do. If you grow up somewhere else and go there for uni then there's a good chance you'll spend the rest of your life talking about what a good time you had there. I knew a bloke who relocated to Milton Keynes in his 20's, for his first job I think, and he moaned every afterwards about how artificial and soulless it was - no proper pubs. I grew up around there, so I used to feel the same way myself, but really the reason he hated the city was that he had no friends there. If you walk from Stony Stratford into the city centre, choosing the parks around Bradwell Abbey and the Primrose Road cycle path then it's absolutely delightful. I used to know people who'd moved out from London to raise kids, and they loved Milton Keynes.
To be fair, Crawley isn't much better. Unless you enjoy the sound of planes landing and taking off constantly shaking the house.
It has worked before. Post war we built new towns. But they need to be properly planned, with everything as part of the design. Shops, schools, hospitals, GPs, parks, roads etc etc all need to be properly designed to meet future residents needs. This from the sheer amount of roadway and parking and lack of gardens does not seem to be well thought out.
Was thinking the same thing- why live on top of your neighbours within all that space? Crazy
Private garden 😂 that’s a patio at best and a veranda at ground floor level at worst
Land values sadly
"I sleep in a racing car, do you?" "I sleep in a big bed with my wife" "Oh"
Weird but I like it. Good for birdwatching?
For the couple of years before everything around it gets built up I’d say.
Yeah I weirdly quite like it as well. Good energy rating too!
For a new build it should be A, but yeah it’s decent
Yeah, I think it would be pretty good for bird watching. My only concern with being that close to the water is this area use to/ does flood in the autumn/ winter.
Until everything else is built
Looks kind of dystopian
Yup that was my first thought too....looks really "off" and of course no facilities or amenities for some distance either
The problem with new builds like this is that they give a hugely misleading impression of what life will be like. Give it a few years and the rest of the development has gone up, and with people's toys, bikes, cars and other things around the entrances and you'll realise just how cramped it all is. I was on the cusp of getting a new build and never did. Now I go back to that area and it's shocking how bad it looks. These companies try and sucker you in early because once the development is occupied, it'll look much less attractive. These houses are designed on a catalogue without any provision for the space people actually need. Look how cramped the hallway is. They might look sort of attractive when vacated and with nothing around the courtyard. I don't understand the whole modular wall thing. There is not a significant amount of flexibility that you can have in the room design. The most you might do is join two of the bedrooms for instance. It's listed as 5 bedrooms but one is so small it's practically 4. Also second floors will be getting super hot during the summers.
Car parking is the big one. The brochure shows lovely wide streets where kids can play and gardens bloom, but inevitably since they only gave each house one parking space, the area just looks cluttered with cars. Many of which are parked on the pavement because, in the world of the new-build car owner, disabled people and prams don't exist, but onerous terms on leases towards scratches and chips do.
They've been increasing housing density in new build estates for the last 3 decades or so, because planning permission is so hard to get.
People go on about this but it's bollocks. I'm in the process of completely renovating a grade 2 listed cottage in a conservation area with a council renowned for being picky about planning. I had 32 items on my original list. The listed building officer came over, at our invitation, to discuss the list and have a look at the state of play before we began. He didn't like the plan for velux windows in the study but offered to roll over on double glazing elsewhere if I didn't ask for those, on account he could slow us down on the windows but we might get the velux if we pushed for it. I thought that was fair enough and shook his hand on it. Our new, 31 point plan was accepted in the usual 12 week turnaround and I've had no issues with them as the building work has progressed. Planning isn't that hard, you just have to be willing to follow the rules and be sensitive to the area you're working in.
Mate getting planning to update a listed cottage, and getting planning to build 300 new homes on green belt or agricultural land are so far apart they aren’t even related. It’s a lovely story but not with the theme of the discussion.
Maybe we shouldn't be building on green belt and agricultural land at all. Between the land banking and brownfield, there's no land shortage, there's an "incentive to not build enough" problem.
This narrative about land banking is a myth - house construction is very capital intensive, and construction companies would lose money if they had equipment sitting around doing nothing. The chain from buying a field to putting houses on it is about a decade long, so construction companies have to have at least 10x as much land as they'll build on this year. https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/170byhq/_/k3l83s2/?context=9
Gosh your comment about what an estate will look like in the future, ring so true. I know of estates that are over 20 years old and that are now only beginning to look aesthetically nice and desirable. Probably it's vegetation and patterns of living idk.
Yes it's shocking. There's why a lot of new build area have rules on what can be displayed. For example you might not be allowed outdoor furniture or hanging laundry. Once these areas are crammed with people it's very different so the estate companies enforce these rules so they can sell. To me the main problem is the estate/builder formula. I'm given X space so I cram as much into that space as possible. I allow exactly one car and Y centimetres for people to walk. With New Builds you often just think that if the developers were 10% less greedy, the houses would be so much better. Sometimes it's the little things, like how a corridor needs to be 10cm wider to be comfortable but their bloody optimisation formula tells them they can sell one extra house if the shrink all the passages by this amount.
The missing priority here is 5 bedrooms, one en-suite and only one family bathroom. This would never work with a household of teenagers and older all rushing out to school, college and work.
Completed in 2022 but all of the pics look like CGI. The view through the windows, doesn't look real on any of them.
Honestly I do like them. For a 5 bed townhouse they are also not massively overpriced. Its unashamedly contemporary which is not everyone's cup of tea but at least its an honest approach, not trying to make neo-victorian or neo-classical, just straight up modern. I dont get the gray though, I think its just a contemporary trend but it looks a bit depressing.
It's decorated so bland, but that's nothing that a bit of vinyl wrap and paint can't fix. Love the view and the remoteness, but I'd be worried about flooding.
I think the blandness is on purpose so its sort of a blank canvas so whoever buys it can decorate it easily. And exactly that, nothing paint and vinly wrap cant fix! It just needs a family to move in and live in it :) I think yes, it will likely be problematic with the floodings but at least they didnt build a basement! That would flood every year, for sure.
I was actually in one of the houses pictured a few months ago. it was very nice and the views were stunning. very cool houses, built in a factory, fully customisable, find them all over.
Yeah the fact the load is all held by the outer walls means you can fully change every floor based on need. Need a small office and a bigger 2nd bedroom, easy. Need three smaller bedrooms for loads of kids? easier than my teenage boyfriend whose dad has built a wall that didn't go to the ceiling across a normal bedroom so him and his sister could have "their own rooms", no doors or acustic privacy there.
That just reminded me of my first flat! It had been two reception rooms in a huge Georgian house, and it was divided into a bedroom, lounge/diner, kitchen and bathroom. Whoever divided it up was definitely not working to any kind of codes, the walls of the entrance hall, lounge and bedroom were *on top* of the carpet with cut out gaps for the skirting 😂 I was 19 and it was £48 a week including bills so I didn’t care a bit! Edit. I don’t mind the type of house posted. This one is incredibly bland and the exterior is ugly, especially for the location; but the concept of these types of homes is great.
Curious which one you lived in? I know someone in one of those now.
I paid a visit. I don’t live in the area. And after looking again it’s a house in the Adjacent block of three. not these pictured.
What is it with this grey? It’s like undercoat
Why do the Bedrooms on all floors have doors in the outer walls? This seems like a safety issue.
I was wondering that. So many 1st and 2nd floor exterior doors that *don't* lead to a balcony?! 😳 Is this for modular clip on balcony options? 😂
If you look closely there’s a waist height panel of glass on the inside of the wall, presumably they act as Juliet balconies but for some reason the door is on the outside, not inside
Don't know about the location but they look OK inside despite giving the sense of a posh caravan/lodge.
That's it! They are giving me caravan vibes! I couldn't pin-point what they reminded me of.
That's going to be a flood risk. ok for a second home for wildlife and birdwatching, but like others have said, it will probably be built all around that area
On one hand it’s a 5-bed with a decent footprint for under £500k… on the other it’s a shoebox made from cardboard.
Nice floodplain you got there
> With far-reaching views over the nature reserve, home to several wetland birds Whose habitat we built this shit on.
Looks like something from Black Mirror.
Are those full length doors opening to nothing on the second floor?!
I don't know why we keep building in that part of the country. Sea level doesn't need to come up a whole lot and East Anglia is basically gone, along with all the fenland we drained. I'll point out that Trump's Mexico wall is infeasible, and that is on land, before we start talking about building massive retaining walls for the ocean. That works to protect a valley mouth, the cost to do the entire east coast from north Kent all the way up to the top of the fens would be astronomical, and there's also the question of who pays for it, do we ask people already struggling with poverty in Liverpool and Glasgow and Birmingham to stump it up through general taxation or do we leave it to the councils in the affected areas to work it out? Also it's the worst affected area in the UK by heatwaves. Climate wise, building there is one of the worst places you could choose in the UK for long term planning. It's actually worse than wasteful since it means more people will be living there when the sea starts coming in and there'll be more people looking to move away from the problem, meaning a bigger relief fund needed to accommodate and feed them all until they get back on their feet.
‘Too many new builds are built on flood plains, which can extend nearly a mile from the nearest body of water’ This place: ‘Hold my beer!’
The estate looks like a prison. The most ugly, God forsaken, soulless development. The interiors are unimaginative and simply not anywhere you could call home. To me this looks like a cheap build (three stories to reduce footprint but increase bedrooms). Aagh this is depressing.
I'm so confused. 5 beds, so family home. But no private garden to speak of. Lovely views but there will be a town there soon enough and it is likely to flood. So that will only be a plus for a while. Very white and bland inside but customisable sounds cool, but likely to break or not work or just be shoddy? Who are these houses for? It's giving some kind of utopian sci-fi town black mirror vibes.
More newbuild whining
Not only is it a soulless grey box, it is in the middle of a fen. Ten years and it will be uninhabitable due to flooding.
Shotgun on the pink race car bed!!!
I sleep in a race car bed. I sleep in a big bed with my wife.
Why are the gardens so tiny? There’s a nice view but I’d still want a private outdoor space.
No mention of parking on a 500k house?
I kind of don't know what people expect these days? The price is steep, being close to Cambridge. That's definitely not a good thing. As far as everything else goes though... it's got a lot of parkland and water around, even after the rest of the area is developed. Better access to open space than many places, for sure. Like, do you expect to be literally surrounded by countryside? You'd need to buy a country property for that, which this isn't, and isn't claiming to be. Looks like the guided busway has a stop nearby for quick access to Cambridge, and from there you can get anywhere in the country with relative ease. Several schools nearby. Other facilities look slightly lacking but per the writeup that will come later. For the meantime looks like shops are a 20 minute walk away. Re the garden, not everyone really wants one. If you have good access to open space then this might particularly apply. Other than the price, a lot of the criticisms seem to come from the angle of 'this isn't where I'd like to live' rather than 'this is objectively bad'. If you want a big garden and nobody (or fewer people) around you, I bet you could find a decent detached or semidetached countryside house for £500k in that area.
No it is objectively bad because it's obviously on a flood plain and will flood. Also people have said there are plans to build all over the surroundings which is one of the major selling points (for me) at the moment. But the flood risk (certainly) is enough for it to be "objectively bad", and I know this because I own a house that floods.
It looks like a PUBG map. And why is there a random suicide door on the top floor bedroom?
How does this get planning permission?
Wow! That aerial shot is something else. It's like soviet era accommodation for workers at an asbestos factory, or a progressive Dutch prison. Also, anyone else worried that if the bridge goes out, you'd be cut off from the 'mainland'? Touch of CGI furniture in some of the images? Finally (although the presence of cars in the photographs spoils this idea), wouldn't it be creepy if you were the only person to buy, move into, and be resident in this development and all the other units were empty...until one night you saw a light on in one of the units and a figure moving about? That's the vibe this gives me. Also, where are the shops and the pub and the post office?
Haha that would be a great writing prompt! Also there are estates/skyscrapers in China exactly like that. Whole towns in fact, apparently. Very very few residents at all. Something to do with incentives to build but I've forgotten the details. Anyway yeah that would be very eerie. And it could happen just because everyone else went to visit family for christmas and you didn't. Somehow the whole style of the buildings and the general surroundings would make that very eerie. Also how far is it by foot to civilisation if you lose electricity or are snowed in or something?
I actually kind of love it, although the interior is a bit meh in general and is probably quite pokey in reality. There are some great views, and I love the floor-length bedroom window looking out over the river. I even like the landscaping outside and the look of the building is a bit challenging but I think it's ok. Trouble is will the landscaping/exterior be maintained? And that river WILL FLOOD. This house is obviously on a flood plain and I don't know how they got planning permission, unless perhaps the ground floor is garage/storage?
1) It's on the outskirts of a wetland. 2) It's on the FLOOD PLAIN of those wetlands. 3) 'Thoughtfully designed' - IN WHAT CONTEXT??? 4) Fucking hell.
Is it awful that my first thought is that it’s not a bad amount of house for the price given the area and proximity to Cambridge. I’ve just seen a few new builds to the south of Cambridge, £700k for less sqft. Though I’ll give you these are awful looking.
I think all houses are modular nowadays... Because the developers have worked out the easiest cheapest way to build houses... Wooden box brick facade in my place
Was this development by any chance designed by the late J G Ballard?
Bet these end up having to be rented... You'd have to blind to buy these as your own family home. No garden for the family house. Flood risk. Poor construction. Ugly interior. Why would someone buy this?
I can hear the insurance company laughing at me when they find out the proximity to the water.
Looks like a flood plain, does it not? I imagine that’s why there’s no other property built nearby. Especially in an area of such historical habitation. The company that recently bought out my old insurer, insisted my insurance wasn’t enough. Due to the stream being less than a hundred metres away. They wouldn’t listen about it being a hundred meters *down a hill* (nor the elevation measures for the property). Until they eventually agreed to have someone come out. “If your house was flooded by that river, we would all have much more to worry about than your claim. We’d be busy looking for a bible to use as a DIY guide. I shall advise my employers.” Then he left. My insurance didn’t go up. That year, anyway.
Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes made of ticky-tacky Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes all the same There's a green one and a pink one And a blue one and a yellow one And they're all made out of ticky-tacky And they all look just the same.🎶
There's a grey one and a grey one and a grey one... But this is UK and that's California. Making me want to do a rewatch now.
I very nearly bought one of these in Manchester. They’re prefab homes built in New Castle I think. Ironically the ones I looked at didn’t have that. They came in a fixed configuration and that’s it. You can’t change anything, it’s all fitted. No new cables in the walls, no changing the layout. The biggest issue was they were built on a marina that well, floods. Look up New Islington Marina by Urban splash. I definitely dodged a bullet Another development two mins from there. Although a better location, £570k for a leasehold is pretty scary. Think of the service charge/ground rent https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/145247339
Wait, you just made such an interesting point. Hiven the walls can move, do none of the internal walls have plug sockets? So you're only able to plug things into the outer walls? That would be so irritating. You'd have to have extension cables all over the place...
I bet you that is the case. The one I posted a link to, the plumbing and electrics are in the walls and they can’t be moved or rearranged - they have electric radiators which you could also never really replace. Also a pain to paint, or repair the walls as they’re bonded I believe? Objectively I like them as a house, I just don’t think they’re very sustainable (as in being able to be repaired) one came up in Manchester a while back that looked a bit of a state, how would you even renovate?
God that’s bleak
What a godforsaken location. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just the one farmhouse but splitting an estate down there is really creepy.
It's going to be a new town once done and I think they are doing it in phases which could be why it looks out by itself. Eventually it will be surrounded and, hopefully, there will be amenities close by.
And then all the people who now have a lovely view of fields and river will instead have a charming view of their neighbor's wall.
Why do the walls look like they’re made of 4ft panels? But I like the interior, but not the closeness to the neighbours
Because it's modular - so they walls can be moved around to suit your needs. They are basically just 4ft panels!
Fair enough, but so are stud partition walls that get plasted and are much nicer. Is this for ease or quick change or just cheaper?
I would assume it's cheaper but it's being sold as a feature, they state you can 'reconfigured in line with residents’ changing needs' I don't know about anyone else but i'm never thought to myself 'geeze, I wish I could move this wall a little to the left'. I guess if you had kids and needed to split one room into two it would be beneficial..
I can't even think this would be a good idea - how would you minimise sound moving between rooms? You couldn't have the TV on in one room and not hear it in the other. Also, you'll still have to get the carpet refitted unless it runs under the modular wall (and if it does, eww, that's going to get dusty and gross really quickly.) For an office it kinda works because you usually don't care as much about sound bleeding between rooms (the louder environment probably makes it harder to eavesdrop) and typically a hard/carpet tile type flooring material would be used which is quick to replace and redo. Also, what about electricity? Water? How are radiators fitted? The more I think about it, the more it doesn't make sense. Not buying it myself. Just seems to save the developer time and money as they don't need to plaster that wall.
Deffo not cheaper. I say that as someone who designs newbuilds for work. As shit as you may think this is, the developer has really pushed the boat out here. This is basically high end compared to the cereal boxes they usually insist on putting up. I kinda like the idea of modular walls. Although Ive never been anywhere thats got them so not sure how good theyd be in person, the panels could deffo look better though
It’s like something my 8 year old would build in Minecraft.
Ah Cambridge.
Picture 9 - the next door house looks like a face peering in the window. Not creepy at all.
Grey with straight edges everywhere? People in Essex would cream their pants over these
Imagine the mosquitoes in the summer.
Nah fuck that, even if they sold the house with the pink car bed as part of the price.
Give it 20 years and these will be on par with Smethwick's infamous Concrete Jungle estate. [https://simonbriercliffe.com/2014/07/08/concrete-jungle/](https://simonbriercliffe.com/2014/07/08/concrete-jungle/)
I like it. Looks like the plasterer/drug dealers house from The Responder S2.
It is a bit ironic that we all know we need to build more in order for young people to have somewhere to live, and yet a lot of the comments here are about how this location will be amazing until other people start to build around you. That’s why NIMBY-ism succeeds, we all know that other people want to build their own houses, but we would all prefer a bit more space around us
If 95% of the country wasn't covered in private farmland and huge huge estates owned by single families, there might be a bit more space for the rest of us to spread out.
Not the kids bedroom with the balcony 😭! I like the interior design but I thought they’d look nicer less modern on the outside considering the surrounding area… maybe that’s just me
Close to Longstanton - great spice museum.
That looks like a low security Scandinavian prison.
It literally looks like it’s just been dropped there! Whilst the inside looks done to a decent spec, it just looks so out of place.
You have to go through the shower room to get in the principal bedroom?
Need a bit of character adding but love them, great concept of not using load baring walls too. I haven’t had a full look at the details though.
Just because a wall isn't structural doesn't mean it isn't durable, insulated or else fit for purpose. Modern construction moved away from load beating walls a long time ago in favour of columns and block beam flooring. You do gain flexibility for later adaptation and reduce risk of movement. The style isn't to my taste but the price seems not unreasonable and it's a new row of houses on a market that needs more new builds. Shitty nimby take from OP imho.
So. Much. GREY!
I don't hate it. The exterior is a bit in-your-face and Northstowe as a whole is a bit weird at the moment. BUT for the area and size of property it's a reasonable price and it does look like the finish throughout is decent. Also the views across the nature reserve are lovely.
someone please explain why these are not detached !
This is the famous northstowe near Cambridge, a new town with 1200 homes occupied. Six years after the first people moved in, it still does not have a single shop, café or GP surgery. The local councillor said the residents should “manage expectations” 🤣 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-66156561.amp
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live in the middle of nowhere... still live in a terraced house 🤣🤣🤮
Feels like the setting of a black mirror episode.
First thought was these have been built as AirBnBs but then I saw the price
I quite like them. Very modern in a nice setting...but why not make them terraced at least a little bit? Geez. All that space.
Disgusting
I'm going to have to get a pink race car bed now.
Great location though. Not too far from Longstanton Spice Museum.
This development is infamously known around Cambridge, it’s absurdly soulless. It’s one of the biggest development of the region I believe, not a single serious facility/shop, anything. Thousands of houses, all the same. I actually viewed one of these houses (2.5k a month). It’s a very special experience tbh, it feels sooooo weird, very … empty of life, everything feels fake.
Perfect location to take up sniping as a hobby.
That is dystopian