The Bellway Homes developments near Bluewater and Dartford Crossing changing face of north Kent
A large part of the north Kent landscape is changing forever with a major housing developer building more than 1,000 new homes.
But who are the people moving into these properties and who are the workers behind the construction and selling of them? Ben Austin headed down there to find out more.
Developer Bellway is building four new large housing estates near Bluewater and the Dartford Crossing with homes ranging in price from £270,000 to £634,000
Work on what was green and brownfield land began in 2022 and around 1,182 new houses and apartments will be built by 2030.
These sites: Crossways Quarter in Greenhithe; Ebbsfleet Gardens in Ebbsfleet; Alkerden Heights in Swanscombe; and Harbour Village in Northfleet, are already advertising with some homes already moved into.
The typical customers are London renters looking to get on the property ladder somewhere with good transport links to the capital - a familiar path trodden by hundreds of thousands down the decades.
At Alkerden Heights, Bellway is looking to build around 182 new homes ranging from one-bedroom to four-bedroom properties.
The first residents moved in last June and at the time of writing around 40 people have followed.
Kirolina Buvoczynsko has lived there with her partner since April having previously rented in London.
The health and safety officer said: “It was my partner’s idea to move. He was looking for an area away from London but close enough as we work there.
“Three years ago this place was under construction and I was like ‘no way we are moving in here’ but he said ‘I work in construction I can tell you that it’s going to be an amazing development’ and so I said ok.
“We lived in lots of different places, usually south London, renting and then depending on my partner and where he was working.”
The couple are originally from a small city in Poland and Kirolina compared their new home to living there.
The 33-year-old said: “It was sort of the same arrangement as here where everyone is so safe and it’s a similar environment and so I’m happy.
“We were here every week after purchasing the house just to see what the area was like every evening, and when I saw kids leaving bikes on the street, I was thinking you wouldn’t leave your bike like that in London.
“We aren’t planning to move back to Poland yet but to have a small part of that lifestyle back is really nice; everyone knows everyone here.”
For the £470,000 the couple paid for their three-bed home, Kirolina explained they could only afford a “failing two-bed” in the capital which would need costly renovations.
She added: “This is away from London, safer and quiet. London maybe works for young people but not for families.”
This is good news as since moving in Kirolina has found out she is expecting.
“Less than a week after we arrived I found out I am pregnant. It’s amazing news and perfect timing,” she said.
“We didn’t plan that, however, it is an amazing area to have kids. Walking around you see couples with dogs cats or kids.”
Neighbour Stefan Gavrilas had a similar life journey to north Kent.
The 33-year-old and his partner were originally leasing a one-bed apartment in Lewisham but due to increasing rent they decided to move south.
He said: “We wanted to buy a place for a long time but thought it would never happen because inflation sucks and mortgages suck but a kick in the butt came from the landlord who decided to increase the rent to a value where it wasn’t worth it.
“We didn’t find anything better from a value perspective, so we thought we would search for a house, which seemed unlikely, or an apartment.
“Randomly we stumbled upon this one, we were searching Bellway and other developers for a long time but never had anything close.
“The mortgage is less than the rent but you add the life insurance, home insurance the alarm system and it does come out a little higher but not by a lot and you identify these are valuable things.
“You have to look at the advantages and the mortgage will always decrease as you keep paying and then you can remortgage while rents just keep increasing.”
Stefan saw his new home on November 10 when it was just bricks and a roof – not even windows had been installed.
A couple of days later he reserved it and moved in on March 3.
It is a £340,000 two-bed house with the spare room urned into an office as he works remotely as a software engineer.
Despite being happy with his move, he did have initial doubts.
He said: “One thing that did scare me a bit was Bellway being review bombed over the last year on Trustpilot.
“I don’t know how many of them are true and from a personal perspective, I have to say none of it is.
“Some reviews range from sales advisors were rude which I can’t picture as they are usually the brightest people on the planet.
“The second thing that legitimately worried me was that a lot of reviews said snags were fixed in more than one to two years which sounds like a big thing.
“When we had a professional snagger in, there were about 160 snags found, mostly minor.
“After I sent the snag fixing form to the site manager she basically said ‘I’ll take care of this’ and every day we had a professional in sorting it out.”
At Crossways Quarter, we spoke to sales team member Anca Ceronica who showed us around a show home.
She has a law degree but while at university took a job in sales and fell in love with the profession - she’s been with Bellway since 2017.
She said: “I love this job because every day is different you meet different people, and I like to discover their needs and help them in one of the most important journeys of their life.
“It’s really nice to see people moving in after my journey with them ended but they keep coming back to me if they have any issues and I always talk to them.
“I always said if there are any issues to come and talk to me and I would help them even when the sale is completed.”
Anca has even been the reason someone has decided to take the leap and buy a flat in the development.
She continued: “I know sometimes it is harder to deal with first-time buyers rather than investors but it is the part I love most as I build relationships with them I update them all the time.”
Yet people wouldn’t be able to move in and sales reps wouldn’t have anything to offer if it weren’t for project managers like Vixit Ray.
He has been a site manager for 18 years with a background in construction.
He said: “I come from India and when I was around 10 the highest building in my city was six-storeys.
“We always cycled around there and looked up and dreamed and how people work at that height and it always fascinated me so I always wanted to be a civil engineer.”
He currently oversees efforts at Harbour Village, having been there since 2022 and scheduled to be on site until 2030.
The 562-home Northfleet development is split into three phases – the first two have 254 houses with the final phase being apartment blocks along the River Thames.
Vixit said: “I love the job every day. The best pleasure is when the customers move in, get the keys, and see the happiness on their faces.
“You go through all the stress while you’re building it but the most happiness is when the customer collects the keys it’s the happiest moment especially when they are first-time buyers.
“I get a sense of pride when we have had a few people move in and recommend the area to their friends and families who also bought a property and that is the most pleasing thing as it means they are happy with the workmanship.”
Family man Vixit also occasionally brings his two children to the site.
“I have done it for the last six or seven years so they can see what their father is doing when he wakes up and goes to work every morning,” he said.
“They enjoy it, my daughter in particular, she wants to be like me and so it’s a good thing when she looks around.”
With so many houses being built and at varying times there is much of the site at different stages of development.
Vixit explained it takes around nine months to build a single home starting with six weeks of foundation work followed by 12 weeks creating the superstructure and ending with six more weeks of adding the finishing touches.
Because of this, it is a great place for future generations of builders to come and study how the site is run.
He added: “We have various students from North Kent College who come round and study on site and they are quite excited to see how it is built because they only ever see it on paper normally.
“They have loads of questions and it is good for the future generation to get involved because on the practical side of it, they can visualise it.
“When they go back they always have positive feedback and they want to do more visits so we plan to do one every six months.”