Gattington Park

Meet Mary and John Cleeves, both 69 who have recently become members of the Wyldecrest Family. They moved into Lovely new Omar Regency in Gattington Park, Lincolnshire. We caught up with them to welcome them and also have a short chat as to how their journey of moving into a park home happened. Q: Where did you live before moving into the Park Home The Villages, Lady Lake, Florida. We owned a Park home in a retirement village 60 miles north of Orlando and lived there for 6 months of the year for 15 years. Q: What were your living conditions before you moved? We owned a 1000 square foot 2 bedroomed, 2 bath roomed house and we mainly drove around in a golf cart. Golfing was one of our passions and we had 40 golf courses to choose from. The retirement village is 25 square miles and 140,000 people of every nationality call it home. You can imagine that lots of friends and members of our family were happy to come for a visit. Q: What prompted the move? We had always planned that we would return to the UK when we reached 70, but the uncertainty of Brexit made us consider moving earlier. We had thought that it would take some time to sell our house in Florida, but as it sold within one month, we decided to return to the UK early and guarantee that we would be in a house for Christmas. Q: What was important to get right? We knew what we needed to spend and what type of house we wanted and we wanted to be living in it before Christmas. As long as the price was right, we decided that we would look at Park homes wherever they were. We had looked at second-hand homes, but we loved the look of the Omar Regency from when we first started looking, so that was the one we kept looking at. We also knew that we were tired of traveling around the UK when we came back, so we were planning on getting a house as soon as we could. Q: What was good to have to get it right? We knew that we wanted a new home with all the furnishings being brand new, which meant we could move in immediately. As one that we liked was available here, that helped us make the decision to buy at Gattington Park. Q: What was less important? We were looking for a property across the Midlands, but as long as it was a nice area, we would be happy to settle at any of the parks. As it was, we both loved Gattington Park from our first visit last June, and none of the others ticked all the boxes, so we are happy that a house was available here. Q: How was the move? We arrived back in the UK on November 9th and had our first look at homes on November 15th. Over the weekend we visited four parks across the Midlands including Gattington Park. We decided to look at Gattington Park again on Sunday 18th and we decided there and then to buy. By Monday the 26th we were in the house Q: What is the best part of living in the park? We loving living in the house and as we have been looking at various Omar Regency models for nearly a year, it didn’t take long for it to feel like home. The furnishings are good quality and match our taste. The park is in a nice area, quite handy for Coningsby and we even enjoy seeing and hearing the jets flying over. Q: How is life in the park – Initial settling-in period? From the day we moved in everybody has been very welcoming. We were lucky to be invited to a dinner with a number of the residents in our first week and so got a chance to meet them, although that hasn’t helped when it comes to remembering everyone’s names. Everyone is chatty and has been very good at giving us useful information about contractors and businesses. We will be attending the AGM in the New Year, so I’m sure we will learn more. Q: Is there any not so good parts of being in the park? Moving into the park in winter means we won’t see it at its best, but we know that there are continued improvements being made and we look forward to seeing it when it is complete. Q: Was the feeling of being part of a community important? Living in the Villages for so many years, where community spirit was very high, we are looking forward to experiencing something similar here.