Designed to be instantly recognisable, Redrow’s New Heritage Collection, launched today (Feb 11), features traditional looking homes with all the character of an older period style property – and none of the drawbacks.
Their high-specification interiors meet the demands of modern lifestyles and they are significantly more energy efficient than their second-hand counterparts. The new collection is also very much about providing the homes that people really want to live in.
It focuses heavily on traditional two-storey homes – with plenty of room for families - rather than apartments and three-storey properties.
Returning to the housebuilding industry last April, Redrow’s original founder Steve Morgan decided “enough was enough” and pledged to return the company he began 35 years earlier to its core values of quality, tradition and superior styling, with an emphasis on the family homes for which it was once known.
The result is The New Heritage Collection, a premium housing product with more than a hint of nostalgia, influenced by the ‘Arts and Crafts’ era, but boasting a specification that meets all the requirements for 21st Century living.
Now firmly back at the helm of Redrow, in his role as chairman, Steve comments: “When I left Redrow in 2000, we had a product widely acknowledged to be the best in the industry, with an average selling price around 25 per cent above the UK average. When I came back our homes were selling at 20 per cent below the market average. We had too many different house styles and no real distinguishing features.
“For the last seven or eight years, planning guidance has forced the industry into building more and more high density developments, which has produced an over-supply of flats and tight courtyard schemes with limited parking. This is not how people want to live.
Redrow’s New Heritage homes are designed to stand out from the crowd “Research we’ve undertaken, consumer focus groups and feedback from the overwhelming majority of our customers tells us that they want a conventional two-storey home, preferably detached, with an easily accessible garage and a garden of their own. They want a home that looks traditional, perhaps evocative of the family home they grew up in, but they want it to have the latest statement-making kitchens, bathrooms and good quality fixtures and fittings.
“The New Heritage Collection is about returning to family housing and traditional values. Some planning authorities appreciate what we are trying to achieve but in other areas we are having to work very hard to change perceptions and get permission to build the kind of homes that people want to live in.”
In terms of getting the attention of potential customers, the timing of this new collection is impeccable – introduced just as Britain shows signs of recovering from the recession; Nationwide, Halifax and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveys have all reported several months of steady improvement in house prices and / or demand.
Those who remember the early 1990s will recall that Redrow undertook a similar exercise with its original Heritage Range, launching a very distinctive set of homes that differentiated them from competitors and successfully steered them out of a similarly lack-lustre housing market. Redrow is aiming to repeat this success with The New Heritage Collection.
Fully furnished New Heritage showhomes are already open at developments in Lancashire, Merseyside, North Yorkshire, Derbyshire, plus North and South Wales. It will also be available soon in Bristol, Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, North Lincolnshire and Scotland’s central belt.
See Also: Property News (6699), Redrow Homes (115), New Heritage Collection (32), Steve Morgan (6)
Date Published: 11 February 2010
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