New gardens, new designs, Chelsea inspiration!

The recent Chelsea Flower Show showed just how to get the best out of your garden, be it large or small.  The amazing gardens used the available space to its very best and provided inspiration to all budding designers.

Jekka McVicar designed the Crocus sponsored garden.  It was a garden inspired by the healing power of plants and featured research-based plants known to be beneficial to health and well-being.  Lavender-lined paths led towards the water feature.  Scented plants surrounded benches and beyond these, the garden contained plants such as chicory, sorrel and red-leaved herbs thought to be beneficial for cardiac health.

 

The Morgan Stanley Garden for Great Ormond Street (below) featured a plant-rich area of woodland and all that grows within it, with a mix of perennials, hedges, topiary and mature trees.  Mixed up with colourful planting, a water feature and a stunning statute, the garden will be relocated to its permanent home at Great Ormond Street hospital to provide a quiet, reflective space for families with children undergoing treatment.

Australian designer Charlie Albone designed a stunning garden which brought spaces to relax and reflect.  With a water rill running around the garden, the sunken lawn was surrounded by structured hedging.  Exotic and European plants were mixed to bring tones of purple, white, pink and soft red. 

Whilst not everyone may be a budding Charlie Albone or Dairmuid Gavin, the Chelsea gardens really did showcase exactly what can be achieved when looking at a completely blank canvas.  The perfect inspiration for your new Larkfleet Homes garden!

Why you should considering a 'buy-to-let' as an investment

Landlords in England and Wales made average returns of 9.6 per cent on buy-to-let properties in the year to end of March, or so says The Guardian and the Property Partner website.  They state that over the same period, the FTSE 100 index of shares fell by 3.9 per cent while deposits in even the best cash ISAs have earned only 1.4 per cent.

If you are looking to invest, buy-to-let housing still offers an excellent option for your hard-earned cash, even taking into consideration the recent changes to Stamp Duty and banking changes.

Our newest development at Thorney Meadows near to Peterborough offers the perfect location for a family sized 'buy to let'.  Situated just outside the city, Thorney Meadows will have three, four and five bedroom homes on offer with fourteen different styles available.  Thorney Meadows is ideally placed to attract professionals wanting to commute to Peterborough or nearby Cambridge

If you are looking to invest nearer to Corby, Gretton Valley at Weldon is offering pre-launch prices on all houses.  With a number already reserved, buyers can still chose from homes with one to five bedrooms, offering options for every type of investor.

Strictly Larkfleet!

The Larkfleet Group was one of the sponsors of the recent NSPCC Strictly Razzmatazz charity dinner in May.

The dinner raised more than £25,000 to support disadvantaged children in Peterborough and the surrounding areas.

Strictly Come Dancing favourites Anton Du Beke and Erin Boag wowed guests with three amazing dance performances before posing for a picture with our CEO Karl Hick and joint managing director Helen Hick.

The Baston Tea Party!

Our age exclusive development in Baston, The Croft, is holding its own Baston Tea Party on 11 June 11 in celebration of the Queen's birthday.

The celebration is being organised by resident Margaret Wilson.  Margaret has invited all her neighbours at The Croft to join in and celebrate by bringing contributions of food and drink to the onsite community hub.  She even has her flag and bunting ready to go up!

This is the first official resident-run community event to be held at The Croft hub, so really it is a double celebration!

Top Tips Tuesday - Decorating your new home!

Decorating can be great fun - and extremely stressful!  Anyone who has stood in front of the shelves and shelves of paint colours in their local DIY store will know the pain of wondering which one shade of yellow to pick, particularly when the actual colour differences often seem so minute!

Here are our top tips this Tuesday:

1. If you are painting, avoid cheap brushes and do all your 'cutting in' and edges first!  If 'cutting in' means nothing to you, it might be worth consulting an expert painter and decorator!
2. Remember patience is key! Give your new home time to settle before spending on decorating.  Larkfleet Homes suggest you leave it at least six months before starting to decorate.  Every new home will have a few fine settling cracks that will appear as the plaster fully dries out.
3. Try and connect the house and make it flow.  Our show house at Buttercross Park, Oakham uses just this tip.  Using a strong and bold orange as the main colour running throughout the home, different wallpapers and accessories are used to pull the scheme together as it flows throughout the house.

Why should you buy a new home?

Why should you consider buying a brand new home?  Here's why -

A fresh start

A new home is bright, clean and fresh and untouched by previous owners!  No dodgy DIY, no holes in the wall to fill, no expensive kitchens to replace!  It is a blank canvas on which you can stamp your own style and personality.


Less chain, less hassle

With a brand new home, there is no chain, so no waiting, no uncertainty and far, far less stress.


Greener and cheaper

Our Larkfleet homes are built to the latest environment standards, with sustainable timber frames, so they are not only better for the planet they are also cheaper to run.

As well as reducing carbon dioxide emissions, the Home Builders Federation suggests that the energy efficiency of a new home means you could save up to £1,400 a year on utility bills compared to a Victorian equivalent.  Our homes also come with solar panels fitted as standard, so your home really is as green as it can be!


More for your money

Your new home will come with central heating, double glazing, high standards of roof, floor and wall insulation.  It will also come with a new fitted kitchen and fashionable bathrooms with the latest styles in flooring and tiling.  Your garden will be newly laid and ready for you to get gardening!


Spoilt for choice


Our developments offer a wide number of styles and design of homes.  As an example, our new Gretton Valley development offers thirteen different styles of one, two, three, four and five bedroom homes.

Great prices

We offer great deals, including pre-launch reservation prices which are now available at Bourne Heights, Gretton Valley, Thorney Meadows, Doddington Grange, Greetham Square and our upcoming sites in Pinchbeck and Colsterworth.

The upside to downsizing!

Fewer bills, less maintenance, more time to yourself.

These are all appealing reasons to downsize!  Once your family has left home and you look forward to the next stages of your life, you probably will want to look for a home which is designed for you and helps you to reduce your monthly bills.  You need to look no further than a brand new build home.

Downsizing is really all about looking at the space you need now and is not necessarily about looking at smaller spaces - perhaps we should be calling it 'rightsizing'!  Our age exclusive developments, such as The Croft at Baston, offer light and airy new homes in a variety of styles and sizes.  In fact, it has been such a popular development, we have just a few new homes left.  

Our Croft brand is aimed at new home buyers aged 55 years and above.  Our aim with The Croft brand is to create new communities which meet the needs of these independent, like minded people.  Our community hub ensures residents have somewhere to catch up with friends and expand their social life.  The Croft at Baston has allotments which are available to all residents who like a healthy, outdoor lifestyle with the added advantage of their own fruit and veg to hand.

We offer a number of options to help make your move easier, including our part exchange scheme, secure home scheme and homebuyers club.

So, if you are thinking of rightsizing, call Maureen, Jackie or Mike at The Croft Baston on 07725 275820 and take a look around!  

Why buy old, when you can buy new!

As part of this week's New Home Buyers Week, Larkfleet Homes is supporting the Home Builders Federation to showcase the benefits of buying new and what makes a Larkfleet home different. 

Your brand new home, just as you want it.

Older homes just are not designed or laid out for modern-day open plan living.  A brand new Larkfleet home saves you from having to make expensive alterations and gives you open spaces for your family to enjoy right away.

We build homes for modern families which flow from room to room, are full of natural light and come with new, energy-efficient appliances.

A Larkfleet home is energy efficient.

Our new homes are far more efficient than older homes.  They are designed and built with  sustainable wooden frames and the latest building materials, which are far kinder to the environment.  We use the latest, efficient loft and cavity wall insulation and modern double glazing.  We also fit solar panels as standard.  This means most of our new homes will not be paying for all of their electricity, they will be generating some of it themselves! 

Your new home, your style.

Buying your new home gives you the greatest opportunity to explore your individual tastes.  You can visit our show homes for inspiration!

 

We are award-winning housebuilders.

We are proud to say we have won 45 national and local awards, which recognise the satisfaction of our customers and the pride we take in our company!

Our sales staff are committed to making your house move as painless as possible. Take a look at our latest developments.  Our sales staff at each development can explain the range of schemes we have to help both current homeowners and first time buyers find the house of their dreams.  

It's a great time to buy new!

DIY not included!

One of the absolute advantages of buying a new home is the fact that no DIY or upgrading is needed.  Your new home will obviously come with brand new fixtures and fittings, all of which will be covered by guarantees.  Not only does this mean your move will be as about as stress free as it can get but it also keeps the costs of settling into your new home down by an extraordinary amount.

The recent Home Builders Federation survey, undertaken for this week's New Homes Week, showed that the average cost of upgrading a second hand home sits at around £45,000, with changes being made to decoration, bathrooms and kitchens.  Other upgrades include the installation of double glazed windows, new floors and upgraded heating and plumbing systems.

Your new home will come with all of this already in place and will have met stringent building regulations, had regular inspections to ensure all of the work done is up to or beyond the expected standards and will come with a 10 year warranty.

If you are looking for your first home, a new family home or are looking to downsize, take a look at our latest developments at Gretton Valley, Corby and Bourne Heights, Bourne.  We also have five more exciting developments to launch this summer.

New homes, new ways to buy

New Homes Week, run by the Home Builders Federation (HBF), has issued a new survey which shows that 84 per cent of 18-34 year olds want to own their own home.  This figure is encouraging but, interestingly, one in four were unaware of the different schemes on offer to help them get onto the property ladder. 

Larkfleet Homes offers new home buyers a number of schemes including the government Help to Buy equity loan scheme.

The Help to Buy scheme allows the homebuyer to own 100 per cent  of a new Larkfleet home with just a 75 per cent  mortgage and a 5 per cent  deposit.  The remaining 20 per cent  of the purchase price is paid for through an equity loan from the government which can be repaid at any time or on the sale of the home.*



Whilst we appreciate that getting on the housing ladder can seem like a distant possibility for many young people, there are choices available due to schemes such as this and the Help to Buy ISA, which make owning your own new home a real option.

New build homes are perfect for first time home buyers, as well as those looking to move to family homes or downsize, because they come with brand new fixtures and fittings, along with low running costs.   In the case of a Larkfleet new home, we fit solar panels as standard so it may even be that your new home earns you money!

 * subject to approval

Tech Tuesday! New Homes Week

Today is 'Tech Tuesday', the second day of celebrating 'New Homes Week'. The focus of today is all about the new technologies for new homes.

Larkfleet Homes is known to be a trend setting and forward thinking company.  We were one of the very first home builders to offer solar photovoltaic (PV) panels as standard on the majority of our new houses.  These solar panels ensure the home owner's energy costs are kept to an absolute minimum.  They are installed as the house is built along with the control equipment.  The panels produce electricity from daylight, generating usable power even on cloudy days.

Our latest developments at Bourne Heights, Bourne, Gretton Valley, Weldon and Greetham Square, Greetham and Thorney Meadows, Thorney will be showcasing new homes with solar panel installations.

'Meet the neighbours' Monday

'Meet the neighbours' Monday is our first theme for this week's 'New Homes Week' and is all about showing the benefits of creating communities when building new homes.

We are passionate about this and proactively create developments with communal spaces such as play parks, running tracks, allotments and communal areas where communities can form as people relax and chat with their new neighbours.

Our Croft development in Baston is a perfect example of how a new community is meeting, developing friendships and forming strong bonds, all through their new Larkfleet home.  The Croft is an age exclusive development, aimed at new home owners aged 55 years and over.  Resident Mr Cooper explains more:

"I am retired and live alone so was looking for an easy-to-maintain and economical property for my new lifestyle.  My search for a new home brought me to the Croft and I liked the development for its locality, layout and quality of finish.  However, I was also impressed by the community hub which is open to all residents.  Having the hub on site not only means I have somewhere to meet family and friends but also means I can take part in any of the events or classes which take my fancy."

He added: "As I live alone, it is great to have somewhere to meet new people but also to maintain my privacy which is important to me.  The Croft also appealed to me as it has allotments on the site which are available to all new residents.  I will be putting my name down for one and as someone with a past farming background, I am keen to get back on the land and start work on it!"

Karl Hick has been shortlisted for 'Leader of the Year', BusinessGreen Leader Awards

Karl Hick, CEO of The Larkfleet Group of Companies, has been shortlisted for the prestigious ‘Leader of the Year’ category in the BusinessGreen Leaders Awards.

Karl said: “To be shortlisted for such a prestigious award is a privilege. I can see I am in very good company and I look forward to the event where the winner will be announced.

”From our base in the Lincolnshire market town of Bourne, I believe we are leading the way in showing how high environmental and quality standards can be introduced practically and economically to the highly competitive housing market and across all our companies. We strive to demonstrate environmental best practice and sustainability not just in the projects delivered for customers but also in our everyday business.”

The BusinessGreen Leaders Awards are among the UK's largest and most admired environmental business awards and celebrate the best and the brightest from low carbon national companies. The winner will be announced at the awards ceremony in London in July.