Welcome to our chateau

If all urban regeneration were like Langdon Park the government would have little trouble selling the dream. There is no grit and grime here. Laing Homes' Langdon Park in Teddington, west London, is a development of 190 one, two and three-bedroom apartments and four and five-bedroom houses built on nine of 32 acres of mature parkland in the former Normansfield Hospital. Langdon Park illustrates why housebuilders have clamoured to pick up the sites of discarded Victorian hospitals. They are brownfield sites without many of the disadvantages of brownfield and with good quality architecture and mature landscaping to add charm and character to whatever homes are built in their midst. Langdon Park's homes have been designed in 19th-century French chateau style, taking their design inspiration from the grade II-listed Victorian hospital building, which is being retained and, under a planning requirement, will be converted to a hotel. The housebuilder went through very lengthy negotiations with Richmond council's planners before winning approval to develop the site. Its contribution to the community includes £1m for the refurbishment of the hospital's ornate theatre, which will be handed to a charitable trust for use as a community resource once its refurbishment is complete. The housebuilder's other additions to the setting include a nature conservation area and a gym for residents.

Prices of Langdon Park's homes are high, starting at £230,000 for a one-bedroom apartment and rising to £799,950 for a five-bedroom mid-terrace townhouse. For Laing Homes the scheme is a showpiece, following hot on the heels of its Langley Park development in Beckenham, Kent. But whereas Langley Park was gated and contained all private housing, Langdon Park is accessible to the general public, and 33% of the homes are affordable, with English Churches Housing Association on board as the registered social landlord. The Normansfield Hospital site, where medical pioneer John Langdon-Down treated patients with the condition now named after him, Down syndrome, retains several links with its past. The theatre, created to provide therapy for patients, will incorporate a museum, and special needs housing is being provided for existing residents whose shabby-looking 1960s houses in the grounds are being demolished.

What the residents think …
"When is the social housing going to be completed?" John and Aileen Decker quiz Laing Homes Thames Valley sales and marketing manager Christine Tiernan, as soon as they meet her. They raise the question not because they are anxious about the new neighbours, but because they want to be part of a more mixed community. They also ask Tiernan why the social housing tenants do not have the private buyers' benefit of free access to the site's gym.

The retired couple traded down from a 90-year-old family house in nearby Kew to their more manageable three-bedroom apartment at the end of last year. "We decided not to stay in the house, as it was becoming increasingly hard to keep up," says John. Buying a home proved to be "a harrowing process for six months", he recalls. "We were being dejectedly shown around a collection of overpriced properties." The couple looked at a new homes scheme in their Kew neighbourhood by developer St James Homes, but were put off by the environment. "It was too flashy for us," says John. "We can't wait until the affordable housing is ready here. We feel that we have more in common with schoolteachers. It will be a better mix then."

Initially the couple ruled Langdon Park out of their home search, because the publicity that they saw for the site showed only large houses, but they strayed there one day by chance and found there were apartments for sale. As a former teacher of handicapped children, Aileen was keen to see the site of John Langdon Down's hospital and theatre. "Our three criteria were that we wanted an L-shaped ground-floor living room, a ground-floor flat and to keep our animals," she says.

The couple have bought one of a handful of apartments on the site that have the prized L-shaped lounge/dining room. The couple's two cats and dog Angus seem to have settled in perfectly in their home with its 30 acre garden.

John describes the setting and its architecture as "sympathetic, calm and muted". He continues: "Alright, it's a pastiche, but it's not out of place. It's not something we're ashamed to come into with our friends. But the block's vestibule is gloomy. It has to be lit by artificial light. Also the car park layout is wrong – it is too close and our neighbours are staring into our windows when they park their cars."

John also has snagging issues. "The customer-care department is friendly and polite, but they leave it to the customers to find the faults, which isn't right. The layman isn't experienced at finding faults. Most of the problems were small, and the one serious problem we've had – a water leak from the floor above – was taken seriously. But the housebuilding industry says that building a home is different to making a car and that's nonsense. Building is a matter of assembling factory-made components. After several thousand years the building industry ought to be a bit more efficient at putting things together."

"But Sid the site manager has been so sweet," adds Aileen.

"He clearly knows what he's about," says John.

The most difficult aspect of trading down is cramming the furniture and belongings from a family house into a smaller property. "For us this has been an exercise in eliminating the garbage of 40 years or so," says John. The 1049 ft2 apartment is being fitted out with shelves and cupboards to provide the maximum storage and John Decker's study is so tightly packed with shelving that its walls are barely visible. The couple have no complaints about the storage space provided by Laing, however, and have a good supply of cupboard space in the kitchen, bedrooms and hallway. "I had a beautiful hall with an inglenook in our old house and I miss the window seat," says Aileen. "But this is all on the one level and it is easier to get round and keep in order."

The developer responds …
Laing's Christine Tiernan responds to the Decker's questioning, explaining that the social housing tenants will be moving in at the end of the year, and that the reason social tenants don't have free access to the gym is because the housing association won't pay for it. Social tenants can have access to the gym, but they will have to pay an annual fee of £60.

The Decker's positive view of the social housing element at Langdon Park is not unusual, says Tiernan. "It is only ever an issue once in a blue moon."

As the first residents to move onto the site, the Deckers have had to wait for any kind of community to develop around them, and some 40% of the buyers at Langdon Park have been investors, and many have taken some time to find tenants for their homes in the present overcrowded rental market. "We were a bit worried because they were the only people on the whole site," says Tiernan.

The sales and marketing manager admits that apartments were not played up in its advertising. "We did target our advertising campaign at the houses because we were selling the flats well," she says.

John may be unhappy about having a car park directly in front of his bedroom window but he can draw some comfort from the fact that the problem will not affect all ground-floor apartment dwellers on the site. A high proportion of the apartment car parking is being concealed under a central courtyard, a better but more costly design solution than the surface car park alongside the Deckers' block.

With the site now almost half way through its three-year development programme, Tiernan says that the clearest lessons from this project came from its earliest stages. "Our main lessons from this site have been on the planning side, because it is a conservation area and it took us three years to get permission to build," she says. "But it has been a popular site and we are now 50% sold here. There is a lot of interest in the history of the site." Another piece of good news for the Deckers, and other interested residents, is that the housebuilder hopes to organise tours of the theatre once the refurbishment is complete.