Retirement villages
Theroughguidetobuilding a retirement community
Legal & General’s later living business Inspired Villages has six operational retirement communities, with a further 14 sites in various stages of planning and construction. Here, development director Neal Dale presents a guide to designing high quality retirement villages
Those of us involved in the retirement living sector have been campaigning loudly for many years about the need for more specialist homes to accommodate our rapidly ageing population. The events of this very strange and challenging year have, however, demonstrated more starkly the quality of life difference between those living within the support of a retirement community and those in homes that are too cumbersome to handle, and far from friends and family. Covid-19 has meant the vulnerable across society have had to self-isolate. We are very proud that for Inspired Villages this has not meant our residents have been isolated.
‘Buddy calls’ from village teams, socially-distanced activities such as dance classes in our spacious grounds, with residents joining in from their private patios or balconies, grocery and cooked meal deliveries from our restaurant teams to resident doorsteps, and the creation of a virtual village centre are among the many initiatives we took to both successfully protect our residents from Covid-19 and the toll of self-isolation.
The pandemic has tested the mettle of the retirement living model and retirement communities have passed the test, providing proof that we do need more in
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the UK. Currently there are more than 12 million over-65s in the UK and this figure is expected to increase by 50 per cent over the next 60 years. However, only 7,000 age-appropriate homes are delivered each year, meaning there is a wide disparity between supply and demand. What constitutes ‘age-appropriate housing’ or ‘specialist homes for over 65s’, you may ask. Well, there are a number of factors, from design, services offered and technology used that help make up the ‘bones’, so to speak, of a successful retirement community. Of course, the people – village team
No detail is too small for our
development team to take care and notice of - the aesthetic of our villages is dissected at every stage
and residents – flesh out a retirement community into a truly vibrant and supportive place to be, but the bones need to be right to allow that to happen. Here, I will set out Inspired’s rough guide to designing a high quality, cutting-edge retirement village.
1. Pay close attention to exterior aesthetics
No detail is too small for our development team to take care and notice of - the aesthetic of our villages is dissected at every stage. This is particularly important because, while retirement villages are still a relatively unknown concept in the UK, we are easily confused with being a care home and an ‘institution’ for which our target market believes they are not yet ready. To help battle that notion on an aesthetic level, we recommend retirement village developers introduce different finishes to prevent the village having the monotonous look associated with institutions. Using different windows and dormers across the villages, positioning bay windows to take advantage of natural light, and even just making sure apartment doors come in different colours all help with making a village feel more like a home, and gives prospective buyers more choice.
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com • November 2020
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