Jennifer Pratt CERTED. MMRS, DIPM, FCIM, CHARTERED MARKETER

I have been working in marketing in the construction industry for almost 19 years now, following many years working in education. Marketing is not only something I never considered when I had to choose a career but I couldn’t ever imagine that I would be working in the construction industry. However, I have now become as sad as anyone else.

Consequently, to some people being the first to move into a new housing development might be a nuisance, but for John and me it is fascinating. We had the most traumatic move you could imagine which culminated in moving our furniture out of the house we had lived in for 21 years into a van which disappeared to Stafford overnight. It actually did this twice but that story is too long to tell. We have certainly learned a great deal about the difficulties of being ‘first in’.

Some time ago we did a project for Constructing Excellence which consisted of some research and then writing up this as case studies. The series was called Building Success. In them we talked to frequent clients, suppliers and manufacturers and occasional clients. (If you would like to read some you can download them through our website.) In these one of the most frequent issues was the slowness with which utilities reacted. Well I can tell you that we moved in seven weeks ago and we are still waiting for BT to provide us with a phone line.

However, our biggest issue has been with Royal Mail who appears not to want to deliver our mail. Six weeks after we moved in we received the transfer documents for the house which were posted seven days after we had moved in. It had cost an extra £150 to have a new set of documents sent to the office. Currently, although the council is collecting our rubbish and the general public are allowed along the road outside our house, it is considered too dangerous for the postman to deliver the mail. Do I sound bewildered? John filed a complaint to Royal Mail’s complaint line and then asked what would happen next. Yes, you’ve guessed it. They said they would write to us to let us know the outcome!!!

Our house was built by Miller Homes and I do have to say how amazing the sales staff are in the ‘marketing suite’. Not only do they try to solve all our issues which are not completely down to them, they treat us like old friends when we come into the office, even though they must know we have a problem (challenge).

What really interests us though is the speed with which the development is going up and the type of structure. It is on a brownfield site and is the usual mix of 40 houses and 210 flats, some of which are ‘affordable’. The contractors only started on site in August, but by February 6 houses were ready to sell and the structure of most of the flats was complete. We have started to take photos so we will be able to remember how the site developed over time. However, for now it would just be good to have a few nice neighbours.

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