Alan and Margaret Spoors moved to Denbury Homes’ development in Badwell Ash looking for a more manageable house and garden. What they found was a welcoming community, a low-maintenance house, and a feeling of coming home.
Alan and Margaret Spoors started married life in Palgrave, Suffolk. They moved to Norwich and after 26 years as teachers in that fine city, they moved to Cambridgeshire to start their retirement. Seven years later and keen to downsize both house and garden, they felt drawn back to Suffolk and settled in Badwell Ash, just 12 miles from where they started out.
Margaret said: “Settling in Suffolk feels like coming home. We’ve visited the county a lot over the years since we lived here previously and have a lot of friends in the area. We missed it during lockdown so when we decided to downsize, Suffolk felt like the obvious choice.
“We’ve had new build homes before so know that we enjoy the low maintenance of them. We do like to have a garden too, but our old garden was starting to feel too big. We visited the Denbury Homes development in Thurston and fell in love with the show home. Ali, the sales consultant, suggested we look at a similar house that Denbury Homes had available in Badwell Ash.
“We had seen homes from other developers, but we preferred the Denbury Homes house. The development at Badwell Ash was almost finished when we bought the house and now the community has really taken shape.
“I see former work colleagues and we’ve made good friends amongst our new neighbours too. The village has a pub, church, village hall and small shop with post office so it’s got a lovely feel to it, there’s always something going on. And we are close to Diss and Bury St Edmunds if we need a bigger shop or for going out.”
Alan and Margaret chose a four-bedroomed link attached home. Alan continues: “There’s plenty of space for when our grown-up daughters come to stay but the house is much easier to manage than our previous one. I really enjoy being in the garden, it’s smaller so I’m delighted to not have so much mowing but there’s still plenty of space for planting and for soaking up a bit of sun!
“The buying process is always a bit of a trial; we had some delays selling our previous home but the Denbury Homes team was very supportive and the purchase side of things at their end went through very smoothly.
“The whole Denbury team has been great, from Carol our sales consultant, to Sinead in customer care and Craig the site manager. They’ve always been there to help with any questions or for instance to help us master the heating system and in Craig’s case particularly, for a chat and a good laugh!
“Speaking of heating, we don’t like to be cold, and the air source heat pump is certainly keeping us comfortable. The house is easy to keep at the right temperature and the bills are lower too.”
Sinead Benton, Head of Customer Care at Denbury Homes, said: “Alan and Margaret were a joy to assist throughout their move, so I am absolutely thrilled to hear how over-the-moon they are in their new home! Getting to know each homeowner is the highlight of my job, it’s so rewarding to see them settle in and embrace a new chapter.”
Margaret finishes, “Between the house, the garden, the village and the wider community, we feel like we’ve landed in paradise, and we are loving every second of it.”
