Alan and Lisa

Caerlee Mill, Innerleithen – 2021

Alan, his wife Lisa and 3-year-old son Jenson are smitten with mountain biking. It’s that passion that has seen the family move from East Dunbartonshire to Innerleithen. They used to spend their spare time travelling to the Tweed Valley to enjoy the world-class mountain biking that’s on offer here.

When the opportunity to move to Innerleithen came up, the family took the leap. Alan, a dentist now working in Galashiels, explains: “We used to spend so much time travelling to enjoy the outdoors, especially good mountain-biking. We had planned to move to Innerleithen before our son started school so when a job came up in Galashiels everything quickly snowballed from there. We feel so lucky to have moved to Innerleithen, it’s an incredible place to live!”

Location was everything to this energetic family and discovering Caerlee Mill offered them an opportunity to grasp the lifestyle they craved, as Alan adds:

Everything just seemed to come together at the right time. There’s a large hill that overlooks the whole of Innerleithen. You can see the stack of the old mill building from the top. I had often looked from the top thinking ‘how amazing it would be to live down there’. Fast forward a few months and when I am at the top of that hill now, I can’t believe that we’re here! We absolutely love it!

While having fallen in love with the local area of Innerleithen, the couple did plenty of research and soul searching before making the move to Caerlee Mill, as Lisa explains: “When we decided to move to Innerleithen, we checked out older style houses as well as the Caerlee Mill development. Initially we thought a four bedroom Brodie at the development was going to be a stretch, but we quickly realised that the housing market in the area was highly competitive, and actually the chance to move into a fabulous new build without having to do any renovations, was worth it.

We’re so happy with our new home 🙂 The build quality is superb, the storage is excellent and we love that we can see the hills from every one of the great-sized windows.

“Alan and I particularly like the look and feel of Caerlee Mill because it’s not a typical big, new-build estate. It has a unique style that’s semi-industrial and the house exteriors are all a bit different, which we love.”

Buying a new home and moving in was quite straightforward for Alan and his family, “Everything happened on the same day – the sale of our old house, purchase of the new one, and we moved that day too. It was so nerve wrecking, but it all went really smoothly in the end! We couldn’t have asked for more from the Whiteburn team who helped us on the day.

“All the staff on site have been great since we moved too. Charlie, the site manager, always has a smile for you, and nothing is too much trouble. Everyone has been very friendly.”

Alan, Lisa and Jenson moved into Caerlee Mill in February 2020. Whilst the following months in lockdown have been a challenging time for everyone, this young family has enjoyed playing their part in this growing community. They are delighted to have great new neighbours, as Lisa adds: “Not only has our lifestyle completely changed for the better, but the community here is just fantastic and everyone has bonded and mixed really well together – we’re all neighbours and friends now!

“Now there are more people moving in, it’s even better. Jenson loves nothing more than zooming around on his go-kart and playing with the many, friendly, Caerlee Mill dogs.”