A guide to living in Lanarkshire

The building and design of the houses are 2nd to none. They look spacious, well built and modern. Access roads are very poor just now, but that's because the site is still be developed, so they should improve as more of the estate is built. As expected there is still a lot of noise as more homes are being built also.

Purchased a Newark house type from Muir in January 2024 and thought we were moving into the house of our dreams, how wrong could we be. Overall we l love the layout of the house. The layout is exactly what we wanted with a spacious living room / diner, large south west facing garden, kitchen and utility room with space for offices upstairs. We love how bright our living room is with the sun and the internal doors are really good quality. The management and after care from this company is very poor, and possibly the most unprofessional group of people I have ever met. (Bar one site manager Alan who is absolutely great and helps out a lot where he can). We had a major issue with our floor which became apparent when our flooring contractor came to install our LVT. They applied a layer of ardex primer to the concrete floor which didn’t take and peeled off, Muir didn’t really want anything to do with it initially and said “a competent flooring contractor should know what’s in the concrete”. This is after the flooring contractor asked the site manager on the measuring day what the concrete mix was and he gave incorrect information to our flooring contractor which meant the material ordered were incompatible with what was in the concrete. It then became apparent that a concrete curing agent had been used on the floor, which I understand is common practice however the technical data for this product advised if any flooring is required to be installed by adhesion then the top layer formed must be mechanically removed. Eventually Muir came back “as a gesture of goodwill” and mechanically sanded the floor to remove the top layer. Queue a few visits back and forward as they hadn’t done it correctly before it was finally ready for the flooring to be installed. Notwithstanding the damage caused to the skirting boards and walls which have yet to be fully rectified, as the painter only turned up for a few days instead of the week promised. The painting work to “touch up” damaged area is very frustrating. Areas have been filled in and not painted over with no dates for the painter return to paint over and also the wrong paint was used on areas on the wall and is noticeable. Finally, we got our flooring contractor back and they applied a new primer (£1300 extra due to Muir’s incorrect information) and left for the weekend. Alas we thought we were on the home straight and it turned out some more patches had been missed and required further sanding as the primer hadn’t taken in a few areas. I asked the Muir Homes site manager if he could help, to which he agreed. Until the contracts manager decided he wasn’t to help as we had been paid £1000 for the additional material by Muir. The £1000 apparently was Muir washing there hands of it, even though there remedial work hadn’t fixed the whole floor. Overall, one of the most unprofessional days I have witnessed from a serious company. Overall Muir are a poor company to deal with, sub standard trade work carried out across the property, bad customer service and rude managers. The contract manager had my fiance in tears in her own home which is disgraceful, all down to his derogatory attitude to which he has yet to apologise. I would describe some of the trade work in the property as sub standard. It looks like somebody semi skilled (or the apprentice) has completed the taping and painting in the house, so many bits have been missed and not yet rectified. Our property had large cracks and chips in the brickwork at the front which have yet to be repaired after nearly 4 months and the sealant work to the external of the property was installed incredibly poorly. In addition to this we have had windows which have been defective since the day we moved in and it took over four months for this to be fixed. From a customer care and communication perspective please expect emails to go without response for weeks. We have had emails which have gone unanswered for 2-3 weeks (with weekly chasers) until you receive a generic response which doesn’t provide any clarity to how the issue will be fixed or repaired. There is no after care plan to fix snagging either, we still don’t know when snagging repairs are planned in for and have no foresight of this. Generally trades people randomly turn up at your door to “do snagging” and disappear without telling you they’ve completed it or to give you the chance to inspect the works. To put it into perspective, the external side light has been broken since the day we moved in and is yet to be fixed. Such an easy fix but nobody has appeared to fix it. Reinforcing the point they are poorly organised and un-interested. Six months we have been in the property and once they have your money, you may as well forget any type of after care or customer service. As much as I love the lay out of the property and the location, if I had the chance again I wouldn’t buy a Muir Homes. I would spend my money somewhere else.

The development is well designed. Houses are very modern looking with the added advantages of energy efficiency measures included eg solar panels and EV chargers fitted as standard. The site is very well managed keeping disruption to a minimum for residents. Any small faults I have encountered have been dealt with quickly.

Variations in external design of the houses give the development lots of character. Around £30 a quarter for maintenance of communal areas, grass cutting etc. Safe environment with local shops and services nearby. Easy enough to get to Edinburgh or Glasgow provided you have a car.

Pentland Reach is an attractive development, with a good mix of different house styles and finishes, giving it a more organic look than the bland 'copy-paste' appearance of most new build developments. The green space on phase 1 is really good, with plenty of space between houses and shared green spaces. The second phase feels a lot more crammed in, with much smaller gardens, houses more or less on top of each other and very little in the way of public green spaces - it feels a lot more urban. The build quality is good, but the completion of public spaces has taken a very long time - roads are still not adopted over 8 years after the development started. Public spaces are starting to be tidied up now, but have often been left in a messy state for weeks or months (and some even years) without any communication from the builders as to when they will be completed.