Get to know Brighton’s ‘York & Elder’ community with Maxine

There’s no doubt that the sites we manage around the country are different in their own unique ways, but what’s continuous throughout is putting the residents first.

All the way down in the heart of Brighton lies York & Elder, a Build to Rent site close to the seaside with a thriving community of residents.

While our Marketing team was on-site checking out the fantastic rooms and facilities, we sat down and caught up with Maxine who is one of the friendly faces on Front of House at the Brighton site.

Maxine originally comes from a pub background, where she was a landlady taking care of customers from all walks of life by putting a pint in their hand and a smile on their face. It’s this caring nature that she brings to the table at York & Elder, something she enjoys a lot; she expands on this with a huge smile on her face: “I like being on front of house and with York & Elder being quite a new build, it’s all clean and the residents are new and nice. It’s really good fun.’

Not only at York & Elder but across all our sites up and down the country, the site teams hold engaging events and initiatives for the residents all year round so they can come together and feel like they belong in the place where they live. “It’s how you build community” she exclaims with confidence.

For the staff at York & Elder, not only do they utilise the fantastic facilities like the private dining rooms, co-working spaces, rooftop terraces and gym for their events, but being in the centre of Brighton sees the team using their surroundings to their advantage, holding events by the seaside and in the local parks, just to name a few.

Of course, it’s all free for the residents.

As Maxine kept us amazed at the work their doing, we had to ask her a very unoriginal but important question: “what’s your favourite part about York & Elder?”

“The dogs” she says without any hesitation whatsoever. None at all.

Furry friends are more than looked after at York & Elder. Just behind Maxine sits a wall with a large Polaroid display of all the dogs strung across it. You could stand there and admire it for a good 10 minutes… as we did.

“There’s probably about 15 to 20 dogs in York & Elder. As part of our events, I’m going to do my first ‘Wag and Walk’ in two weeks, where we’ll bring all the residents together with the dogs, go up to Preston Park for an hour then come back and have hot chocolate.” As we could’ve predicted, we found out after our visit that the event was a huge success.

What’s even better about the events they hold is that not only does it bring the residents together, it allows those who might not be from the UK originally to integrate and feel more comfortable with their surroundings. “So we throw events to get all the residents together so they can meet each other, Especially if you come from another country and don’t know anyone because your job’s been posted over here.

“We’ve got residents from Hong Kong, China, Japan, Sydney, America, and Canada to name a few, so it’s good fun.”

She ends the chat with what any future York & Elder resident would want to hear:

“’ It’s just an amazing place to work and a good safe place to live.”