When Brian and Liz Heskins began looking for a home in which to enjoy their retirement they’d imagined they would move to an older property – and envisaged possibly renovating somewhere.

What they didn’t predict was, that a year or so on, they would be living in an ultra modern and very smart new two bedroom apartment at Linden Homes’ Splash development overlooking the vibrant Ocean Village marina in Southampton.

The Heskins began the process of house hunting in late 2009. They were living in their four bedroom family home in Worcester where they brought up their now grown up, children. One of their daughters married an Australian and now lives in Sydney, but their son and his family had moved less far afield - to Hampshire. Liz says they were keen to be near their English grandchildren and be able to also travel overseas to Sydney without the hassle of house maintenance, gardening and security.

They also wanted to be further south and near the sea, so Southampton was absolutely the ideal location with good road networks and links to the beautiful surrounding countryside and beaches.

Before they bought their own new home, Liz arranged for her mother to move to Hampshire, so she was close by too. Liz says that they found a flat for her mother in her preferred location but it badly needed upgrading to suit her needs.

“While the building work was going on we lived in the flat: It was hard work and by the time it was finished, we’d definitely abandoned any plans to buy an old home for ourselves. After all the work we did on my mother’s flat, the thought of having somewhere new, smart and finished, safe and secure, was suddenly extremely attractive.”

In the meantime Brian had been looking at Splash on the Linden Homes’ website and they decided to go to Ocean Village to have a look for themselves:

“The finish on the apartments was superb and lived up to every expectation we had of Linden. We looked at a few flats but chose this one because it had an interesting layout – it’s a bit quirky. It’s very quiet and has views of the marina from the balcony. When we were buying the apartment, the sales staff were extremely helpful. And after moving in we also had amazing after sales service from the Linden team.”

Liz and Brian moved into their smart, new two bedroom, two bathroom apartment at the end of May this year and Liz says they couldn’t be happier:

“It’s amazing. I absolutely love it. It’s been incredibly liberating downsizing and getting rid of so much stuff. But it’s not just that, it’s the location. It’s such a vibrant area. There’s so much going on. We had the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race leaving from the marina and Cowes week. We’re even thinking we might get a boat of our own again, but we’ll have to see. One thing we have done is to buy a motor home which we store locally and use regularly. Buying an apartment here has given us hassle free time to spend on all the things we want to do in our retirement.

“We love Southampton. It’s an exciting place to be, with its bars and restaurants. We’re also next door to one of the best arts cinemas in the south of England. I can honestly say that buying our Splash apartment has given us both a completely new lease of life.”