I said to myself ‘I’m going to live there one day’ and here I am
Jane fell in love with Langley Park in Maidstone when she first heard about the development four years ago. Since then the 28-year-old has dreamt of buying a home there and thanks to shared ownership that dream has become a reality.
It was summer 2015 when Jane first set eyes on Langley Park. She tagged along with her mum; Penelope who’d spotted the development and was keen to find out more.
“I fell in love with this development when Taylor Wimpey first started it. My parents came down here a while ago to look at moving in. I said to myself ‘I’m going to live there one day’ and here I am”, said Jane
Jane and partner Bobby weren’t in a position to buy at the time. They moved into a rented home and shortly after that their daughter Layla came along. This meant they had to move again.
But last year their private landlord decided they wanted to sell the property, so the couple moved in with Bobby’s parents in Rochester.
But the homes at Langley Park were still in the back of Jane’s mind. When her friend mentioned the development to her last year, travel administrator Jane leapt at the chance to see it again.
“It was my friend who found this particular part of the development; I hadn’t actually seen this bit. She sent it to me and we then came to have a look at the show home, just to see what it was like. But we loved the area, loved the house – so we put our names down. And it’s been completely plain sailing all the way through", said Jane.
They viewed the show home at the start of December 2018 and within four months they moved into their new two-bedroom home.
“We viewed the three-bed show home on 1 December. Our house was up but we couldn’t view it at that point. We were told it’d be ready around May time but it just so happened that they were ready in March, which was a bonus. From the start of December to getting in it was about four months – it all happened pretty quickly.”
Jane’s home is one of 600 homes at Langley Park, all of which are being delivered by homebuilder Taylor Wimpey. Construction work started in 2015 and the development is on course for completion by mid 2021. Thirty percent of the homes at Langley Park will be provided as affordable housing.
Part of the Langley Park development, a Taylor Wimpey scheme started in 2015
“At Taylor Wimpey we’re proud of the contributions we make to local areas in which we build. Langley Park is a fantastic new community and we’re pleased to be providing much needed affordable homes for local people", said Jason Stokes, Sales and Marketing Director at Taylor Wimpey South East
We’re providing 180 homes on the site in total. They’re split into four phases being released in batches. All of our homes at the site will be finished in early 2021.
“In areas like Maidstone, where the average home costs more than 10 times* the average salary, providing genuinely affordable homes is critical. We’re very proud to be providing 180 homes at Langley Park, helping customers like Jane to move onto the property ladder in a sought-after area. We’d like to wish Jane and her family the very best in their new home”, said Sarah Paxton, Assistant Director of Development and Regeneration
We’ve got a mix of 35 one, two and three bedroom homes which will be available through affordable rent, via Kent Homechoice.
We’ve also got a mix of 20 two, three and four bedroom homes available through shared ownership, which launched mid July, via our sales agent Currell, part of Savills Group.
Currell helped Jane throughout the process and were there on moving-in day at the end of March: “We got the keys from Aaron at Currell. It was strange walking in for the first time thinking ‘this is ours’. It’s so nice having the security. In rented we’ve always thought ‘we’ve got a year left’. But here we know we can stay as long as we want.”
And it’s a move they don’t think they’ll ever look back on: “The fact we have a driveway, it’s close to the school I want my daughter to go to. There are so many pluses. This is a house and it’s obviously bigger than the ground floor flat we were in before. And that place was more money than what we’re paying here.”
The homes at Langley Park are close to the North Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and are a short drive from the M20 and Maidstone East Station, with great links to central London and Kent.
“This place is within walking distance to so much; you’ve got a Costa, an Aldi, a Toby Carvery, a charity shop and hairdressers and the school is a stone’s throw from here. We love it here, we absolutely love it.”
Jane and Bobby have purchased a 40 per cent share of their home and hope to staircase in the future to own more: “We never thought we’d be able to get a home that we’d actually own but doing this scheme has tremendously helped us, we’re very comfortable financially, I’d highly recommend it.”