For the Parkgate project I led a full build of a highly customised WordPress website centred around Property Hive, a real-estate listings plugin. The core challenge was to take the client’s complex property data and deliver a sleek, user-focused experience that matched a strong visual design provided by the creative team.

I worked closely with the designer from early concept through to delivery, ensuring the site’s look and feel matched the brand while also delivering on usability and performance goals. Because Property Hive is a powerful but flexible framework, I extended and tailored it to fit the specific needs of the business rather than force a one-size-fits-all solution.

Key elements of the project included:

• Deep Property Hive customisation
  I adapted and extended Property Hive’s templates and data structures to suit the unique requirements of the Park Gate site, creating bespoke listings, filters, search results, and single property layouts that matched the design vision and user expectations.

• Custom front-end development
  Much of the user interface was built from scratch using modern HTML, CSS/Sass, and JavaScript to ensure responsive, accessible, and fast-loading pages. Where necessary, I created targeted enhancements so that advanced search and filtering felt intuitive across devices.

• Design-driven collaboration
  Working directly with the designer allowed me to translate detailed UI layouts into functional, high-fidelity pages. I kept the visual integrity of the design while making sure all components are flexible, maintainable, and perform well in the real world.

• Performance and reliability
  Even with complex property data and search interactions, I optimised templates and scripts to keep page weights low and interactions speedy. The site was delivered with a lean set of dependencies and a codebase that’s straightforward to maintain going forward.

The result is a beautifully presented, highly usable WordPress property site that delivers rich search capabilities and immersive property detail experiences without unnecessary bloat. It showcases how deep customisation of existing tools like Property Hive can be combined with thoughtful front-end work to create a truly standout digital product.

I rebuilt the site from the ground up using Gutenberg, moving away from page builders and unnecessary plugins to embrace a cleaner, more flexible, and more sustainable architecture. This involved creating custom block patterns and reusable components that allowed for rich, flexible layouts without compromising speed or usability.

The new build brings several key improvements:

• Lightweight, performant front end: By stripping out Elementor and reducing plugin overhead, I significantly improved page load times and overall responsiveness across devices.

• Gutenberg-first design: With custom blocks and patterns, the content team now has intuitive, consistent building tools that match the brand’s aesthetic and editorial needs without resorting to a page builder.

• WooCommerce integration: I configured and customised WooCommerce to support the site’s eCommerce needs, ensuring product pages, cart workflows, and checkout experiences are smooth, reliable, and on brand.

• Maintainable codebase: The result is a much cleaner WordPress install with a lean set of dependencies, making updates and long-term maintenance far easier and more secure.

• Improved editor experience: The transition to Gutenberg has empowered content editors to work faster and more confidently, with fewer constraints and a more intuitive interface.

Overall, this project delivered a modern, scalable WordPress solution built with performance and flexibility in mind — a site that looks great, loads quickly, and is much easier to maintain and evolve.