OLD age is good for business, at least if you are Richmond Villages.

The firm builds retirement complexes, including the new £45m Coral Springs development in Witney and a final phase at its popular village in Letcombe Regis, near Wantage.

Coral Springs, which will employ 150 people when it opens in 2016, is the sixth retirement village in Richmond’s portfolio.

After a blip caused by the recession, it has plans to take the total number of homes to nine in the next three years, thanks to being bought by private health provider Bupa last year.

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Anyone seeing brochures for Coral Springs might be forgiven for thinking they are looking at a luxury, five-star hotel.

In common with the Letcombe Regis site, it will follow a tried-and-tested formula, with three options.

There are 80 one– and two– bedroom apartments for over-55s who can live independently, 46 one– and two–bedroom assisted-living flats which offer built-in support, and a 60–bed home with around-the-clock nursing and dementia care.

It will also have a spa, with pool, sauna and gym, a restaurant, cafe, library and hair salon.

The 36-acre Letcombe Regis site, which also has a spa, cost £35m to build and employs 150 people.

The final phase of apartments at Letcombe includes one-beds for £345,000, and two-beds for up to £615,000.

Apartments start from £285,000 and suites from £225,000.

Both schemes are big projects but managing director Paddy Brice says they have fine-tuned the blueprint since they started building in the 1990s.

Mr Brice, former financial director of Berkeley Homes, said: “Two of our earliest villages weren’t making money when they started but we have turned it around and now have five that are doing well.

“We could open two villages a year but the right size of land, location and planning history is difficult to find.

“The only way we are going to solve the housing crisis is to build a lot more houses.

“The Government is just scratching at the surface, not addressing the real problem.”

Richmond’s villages seem a win-win business proposition.

Research suggests over-65s are sitting on hundreds of billions of pounds-worth of equity in their homes, so this is a target market with cash to splash.

Secondly, this type of development is exempt from having to provide affordable housing, something Richmond and other developers have been criticised for.

There’s also criticism it is creating elderly ghettos. Mr Brice rejects this, pointing out Bupa is a not-for-profit organisation.

He added: “Some people say it’s not for them and it’s not right but come to Letcombe Regis and you’ll see it’s not like that at all.

“We are building homes older people want to live in and creating hundreds of jobs because the villages offer ongoing care.

“The problem with lots of developers is they build, and then they move on, but we are here for the long term.”

 

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