Potton Anmeldelser 

Very friendly and helpful
Lots of information and expertise available

Seems such a journey we’ve had with Potton by our side. A must is the visit to the show house village - it gives you such good ideas and awareness of room sizes. Another must is the courses they offer. We met our project manager through them and it gave us a much better understanding of the process we would be entering. It took a while to agree a design but we have a son with disability so we had some considerations we needed to work around. Potton were happy to change the design as much as we needed to get it right. Monty was excellent! We also had to fight for our planning permission to be granted so it was a long time before we could go ahead. When the frame came thanks to Aaron it was pretty flawless and was up in three weeks and looked amazing. Potton have worked with us all the way though. Thanks to them and our amazing project manager we have a quality frame and build that we are proud to start calling home.

Overall a good experience from design through to erection of their Weathertight package, (despite Covid lockdowns!) Would we recommend them? Yes but would offer a few pointers to self building novices like ourselves.

We found our sales consultant, David, to be helpful with out being pushy and our designer, Monty, listened to our requirements and was flexible and patient in his approach with suggestions and options to achieve what we wanted. As our site already had Planning Permission for a larger house our modified design had no issue in being granted, again Pottons and Partners in Planning and Architecture Ltd took us through the process, and their advice later on was invaluable in helping to resolve an issue with a neighbour over access.

Once we broke ground, using a local Potton recommended builder to do the foundations etc, it all went like clock work. The team doing the Frame erection worked well with the other trades and all the component parts, inc windows, doors and roof, turned up on schedule under the guidance of our Contract Manager, Steve.

The quality of the Frame sections and the way they fitted snugly together was commented positively upon by several of the non Potton trades.

As to pointers:-
Attend the Potton Self Build Academy Tutorials with Paul Newman and Mark Stevenson (These we did mainly online due to Covid]. Which as first timers we found these extremely useful, especially in understanding the process and terminology. We had also previously visited the show site which really fixed in our mind the type and style of house we wanted to build.

It pays to cross check the construction drawings before the team start, we had a galleried hall area which was clear on other drawings but the 1st floor flooring plan showed this boarded over which the team installed before we realised, so had to be redone.

There were a few areas that did slip between Potton and the other trades that we were not prepared for and had to learn quickly to get completed, like for example cementing in the post feet, and fitting cheeks to the windows where we had hanging tiles / cladding and who fitted noggins which started to put the “self” into self builder and for us, made every day a school day.

We had also ordered the internal joinery from Potton and whilst the main items that we got to choose, e.g. stairs, doors and handles were all of very good quality, items such as the door hinges that were provided were very basic and we had to replace this was a minor niggle but a small detail that can make a big difference in the overall experience.

Shocking! Steer clear of dealing with their self build consultants, in our experience, they are totally unprofessional ranging from total disinterest to so much overselling the customer doesn’t have the chance to speak! I guess this is a commission only role. A poor business model, such a pity - we tried very hard to order a house from them but have given up! A huge waste of our time, money and delay to our build. Even management are disinterested and happy to turn business away without properly listening to our concerns. Note - there are plenty of other more focussed companies to use for self build.

I cannot praise the company enough. From my initial enquiry to the completion of the timber frame the service has been excellent. Aaron and his team are brilliant. Nothing is any trouble to them and the guys on site have ben polite and courteous. I would highly recommend this great team.

We paid £4800 for Potton’s planning service.
The proposed design met our design brief but didn’t consider local planning requirements.
Potton outsourced the planning application to a firm of planning consultants who were not helpful. They told us that the house would need to be built one meter above ground level because a sloping driveway was not allowed (not true). They told us we needed ecological reports costing over £5000 (not true). They provided a design and access statement copied from another application. When they submitted the planning application, there were so many mistakes (including the property’s address) that I had to resubmit the form.
We used someone else to redesign the house to get planning permission.

Agree with the other review. Appalling customer service. This is our second Potton house and our previous experience in 2003 was an excellent one which is why we used them again. This time around it couldn’t have been more different. Shocking communication making it almost impossible to plan the following trades and therefore increasing the build time, mistakes in foundation design resulting in having to take down and reposition brick work not once but twice. Having escalated our concerns we found higher management to be patronising and rude. We just wish we hadn’t used them. I don’t doubt that the finished product is good but not worth the stress and hassle of dealing with people like this. We have another build to complete and will not be using or recommending Potton again.

Great Frames, awful customer service.
Potton are basically a timber frame supplier and installer, you will still need a building company / excellent project manager....oh and deep pockets as their build cost (in our experience of them) does not properly reflect the correct / current cost of materials or trades. Assume 13% out on their budget costs and you'll get somewhere near where you need to be, so anyone looking to self build should think seriously about build costs.
Having recently used Potton for our self build we found :
The Potton sales process appalling.
Potton design and installation of their timber frame simply fabulous, and our house looks gorgeous.
Customer service appalling.
Other gripes include them marketing an open day at our house without first asking permission (we refused on principle once we found out), taken 5 months (still not resolved) to fix our windows. Failure to build / complete our chimneys', our builder has since had to do this work when it was clearly Potton's responsibility.
In Summary : Use Potton if you wish to build a sensational house, but beware with it comes with a higher budget that you should check out and increase substantially, oh and expect poor customer service at all times.
Apart from that they are a simply fabulous timber frame builder, but house builder they are not...so you need a build or good project manager.

We wasted a morning going to Potton Homes in St neots only to find it shut 8/1/2018. We were rudely informed by a lady when we arrived that we should have read the sign on the gate even though their website said it was open. Never again.