Retirement villages
them. At Inspired, we always make sure we have high speed wi-fi across all our villages.
6. Go green
A final consideration when it comes to developing and operating retirement villages is the environment. Rightly, the world is becoming more eco-conscious and for retirement village design that means getting ahead of the curve. We are actively working on several initiatives with the full support of our partner Legal & General to achieve a carbon neutral village in the next few years.
My advice would be to make use of air source heat pumps or ground source heat pumps to move away from fossil fuels. Installing efficient equipment such as LED light bulbs is another example of a small thing that can make an environmental difference.
Looking ahead, electric cars are likely to be the future of transportation. Future- proofing your retirement community development with underground ducting and electrical supplies to all parking spaces is a sensible move. That means you can add ever more charging points as the trend grows.
Finally, do not forget the importance of grounds and external landscaped areas. Allotments, activity areas for croquet, bowls and pétanque - and formal and informal gardens to provide visual and sensory variety - are all very important ways of enriching lives for residents and encouraging them to keep mental and physically active, as well as socialise. Our allotments have proved a great
distraction and form of exercise for residents particularly during lockdown, and some even helped our grounds team create a woodland walkway through lockdown at our Great Alne Park village near Alcester in Warwickshire. This year also saw the completion of the grass amphitheatre in the grounds of Great Alne Park – we believe we are the only retirement village to have one – where we held a socially-distanced opera evening that was well received by residents. The acoustics were amazing and combined with the woodland background, the amphitheatre is now an atmospheric event space that makes the arts more accessible to older people. In a world beset by coronavirus, with more
and more people re-evaluating the importance of nature, safe green spaces are going to be even more of a draw to potential residents.
Retirement villages are going to be a key part of our pathway through life, so developers and operators need to think ahead of the times now.
TCHE
Neal Dale
Neal Dale, development director at Inspired Villages, has been involved in property development for over 25 years. He is respected and recognised within the industry for his skills and expertise in site identification, acquisitions and onward project development. Neal helped create English Care Village Partnership and Inspired Villages. His extensive knowledge and experience of the industry and is key to Inspired Villages’ growth plans. Neal oversees the land, planning and development teams and is responsible for the delivery of the pipeline of future sites.
November 2020 •
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