Preston Barracks Noticeboard

We know living in a new neighbourhood can be challenging, and we want to acknowledge the patience and resilience shown by residents throughout the construction process, and the impact this has had on your experience of living at Preston Barracks.

More than 200 homes are now finished, with the remaining 144 due this year. Although some areas are still under construction, the end is now firmly in sight, and we're working hard to complete the outstanding works safely and with as little disruption as possible.

Thank you for continuing to work with us during this time. We'll keep this page updated with clear, regular information so you know exactly what to expect and when the remaining commitments - including service-related ones - will be delivered.

Who’s responsible for what at Preston Barracks?

At Preston Barracks, we’ve a managing agent in place, which means some things are managed by the agent, Livingcity and others by Southern Housing.

Lucy Turquand is Living City's development manager on site and is situated in the Plus X building. Her role includes:

General site enquiries
Reporting any damaged or broken items in communal areas
Any issues in the communal areas
Any issues with bin or bike stores
Viewing, not inspecting, the common parts of the buildings to check condition and instructing any minor repairs needed
Dealing with day to day leaseholder enquiries
Maintaining records of tenancy details.

Lucy can be contacted on 07743 381664 or homex@livingcity.co.uk.

Updates on issues at Preston Barracks

Across the site, there are 139 parking bays, 28 of these are designated accessible bays. These are for the use of residents who have purchased a space.

Car park spaces 47 and 48 (disabled bays) are now available for booking for blue badge holders. For further details on this, please contact Living City.

Some of the bays in the under-croft car park are leased to surrounding businesses and the university, this is in accordance with our Section 106 and planning agreements.

Following reports of anti-social behaviour in the car park, we’ve installed four new CCTV cameras, to cover the car park area and bike store.

We’re aware there have been a few previous issues where the roller shutter for exiting the car park has failed. Our contractor fixed this issue on 21 January.

To keep residents safe and make sure emergency vehicles can reach The Furlong, we’re working on introducing parking enforcement for The Furlong and the car park.

We’re improving phone and data signal in the car park and getting the EV chargers up and running. We’re working with Living City on the admin side, including how costs will apply to residents with EVs only.

Once everything is set up, you’ll have:

stronger phone and cellular signal
EV chargers fully online and ready to use

We’ll share simple guidance with residents as soon as the chargers are live.

We’ve completed the remedial works and fully commissioned the combined heat and power; we're in the process of looking at upgrading the pumps in the plant room to ensure in the flow rates between blocks is as it should be
We have now invited Switch2 back to site to sign off their remaining snags, then Switch 2 will take on the management of the plant room and the heat network and will be residents’ point of contact for heating and hot water issues. Until this is complete, Southern Housing remains responsible for managing any heat network issues
A key cause of recent outages has been resolved. We identified that the Gas Guard wasn't being reset during weekly fire alarm testing, triggering system faults. This has now been added to the fire alarm contractor’s responsibility, and we’re pleased to share we haven’t had any reports of outages since. We understand some residents are having specific issues and we’ll be looking into individual cases
Ongoing works are being carried out to improve heating and hot water efficiencies, including the installation of a new water meter to monitor potential leaks. Once Switch2 adopts the system, and with the site nearing full occupation, the heat network is expected to operate more efficiently with a lower risk of outages.

At Preston Barracks, every resident will receive two separate service charges, one from Living City, the managing agent and the other from Southern Housing.

We're aware some residents have service charge queries; these are being managed individually by our Service Charge Team.

Residents will continue to receive their service charge bill monthly and should have recently received the year-end figures.

If you’ve any queries about Southern Housing's service charge, please contact us.

For queries around Living City's service charge, please contact them using the details at the bottom of this page, under 'useful contacts'.

Development progress

The latest update on our development programme at Preston Barracks.

Work is progressing well on 3 The Furlong, with external pathways and landscaping underway
At Saunders Park View, external works are complete and tarmac was laid before Christmas
We’re carrying out quality checks inside the flats and reviewing documentation
Blocks must be registered with the Building Safety Regulator before residents can move in, in line with the Building Safety Act 2022
Block A quality checks have started and are progressing well
Completion of 139 Saunders Park View is planned for 31 March 2026, with residents moving in soon after. 3 The Furlong will follow in the summer
The concierge area is being prepared for fit-out, and we’ll share a completion date shortly.

Landsec (formally U&I) are the overall land freeholder at Preston Barracks. Southern Housing owns the head lease on all the blocks.

There are five commercial units on site, we own these but are leasing them back to U&I. They're now looking for tenants for all units
One of the units, 3 The Furlong, is being let to Sainsburys. They've started their fit out and hope to be open by April
Another unit will be a medical centre and pharmacy. U&I don’t have a tenant yet, but they’ll keep us informed
The other three units, located along The Furlong at ground level, are yet to have confirmed tenants. However, U&I have confirmed there’s interest in these.