Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

The Weasel has hopefully made his last house move in Dubai, the 3rd in 4 years, it gets more stressful every time though the opportunity to clear out the accumulated rubbish of 2 years is welcome.

Moving away from the empty quarter and back to the sea is the best part of this latest flit, the opportunity to finally kiss the Ranches goodbye is a day to be savoured.
Of all the developments in "New Dubai" the Ranches is, for this Weasel, easily the worst.

The issues surrounding this development and Al Reem 1 in particular are legion but we can list a few here:

1. Access, this is the greatest bugbear and one that on its own drove the Weasel from the Ranches. In Reem 1 heading for Mall of the Emirates the main gate is a congested 7km, 20 speed bumps, and a constuction traffic jam from the exit, heading toward Silicone Oasis the Weasel could drive for almost 6 Km to arrive back within in a few yards of his den, but now on Emirates road. On the original models and plans for the development there was a Reem 1 exit, that, like so much of Emarr's hype was an empty promise.
2. The Reem 1 houses are actually crap, dark and miserable inside, the number of serious cracks in the plaster would worry this Weasel if he had bought one (though to be fair they were cheap when launched- just don't buy one now...). Reem 2 and 3 are a bit better with an improved design including a garage roof that actually keeps the elements off the car, though residents are still not allowed to put doors on their own garages.
3. The enfored community spirit trumpted by a few busybodies who voted themselves onto the Commitee is laughable, it's a housing estate NOT a "community" and the sooner you silly people realise that, the better. Their private website lists calamity after calamity in the most hysterical fashion, the latest is, - shock horror - parking on the road outside your own house. On serious issues such as access and the woeful supermarket they have proved to be utterly toothless.
   
4. Speed limits, the "community" is covered by a blanket 40kmph speed limit, this is the favourite bugbear of the commitee, with daily rants against "lunatic drivers". However what they fail to address is that the access roads are just that, access roads, and trying to enforce a ridiculously slow speed limit will result in it being ingnored. So Emarr in order to enforce the unenforceable have installed hundreds of speed bumps around every junction that quickly result in suspension damage to cars and congestion as traffic queues up to crawl over the bumps. This in turn results in drivers overtaking around slow cars at the speed bumps, and exiting vehicles chancing their luck to force themselves into the traffic, in turn making the junctions more dangerous, not safer.
   
5. Shopping, not normally a Weasel worry but the standard of supermarket in particular at the Ranches is appalling, Le Marche, a well known chain in France has been imposed on the development by Emarr. Their imposition of their own personal dogma on the residents (no pork), and crap out of date food would be fine if there was a choice, but there isn't (see access above) so you are stuck with it - for 10 years...
6. Distance, can't really complain about this since they havn't moved since the Weasel set up house there but seriously the distance and time to get to anywhere remotely interesting is tiresome and expensive. The famous interchange that was to solve all access problems was due to be completed in 370 days......18 months ago.......and it is barely half finished, it still takes up to an hour to do the journey from media city.
7. The lake......this was a glorious lake in the middle of the development, quite pretty really and houses overlooking it were sold at 25% premium, all well and good, until Emarr drained it and started building on the lake bed, guess the space was too much to resist eh.
   

Still there is at least one good thing about the place, the tempreture and humidity in Summer are far more bearable that far out into the desert, a small but significant difference.
The entire development is not one of Emarr's better efforts, though to be fair, it is still very popular, just do not live in Al Reem 1.....

So where to next? Dubai marina is the next abode, should the weasel be reviewing his name? The sea weasel perhaps?