Legal & General has announced that its later living business, Inspired Villages, has started construction at Elderswell, its €66.6m (£60m) later living scheme in Turvey, Bedfordshire. Elderswell is part of an ambitious development pipeline, with Inspired Villages to deliver over 2,500 specialist homes for over 65s in the next six years. Together, these planned schemes will create around 1,000 construction jobs per annum, and up to 640 permanent jobs once the retirement communities are complete and operational.
Once complete, Elderswell will offer 130 age-appropriate homes, as well as state-of-the-art facilities in the village centre for both the residents and the local community. The village centre will include a restaurant, café, wellness centre (featuring a fitness studio, gym and Jacuzzi pool), and library. Phase One of construction will see 76 homes and the village centre built by mid-2022. The scheme will help boost the local economy, supporting regional growth at a time of heightened need. The construction phase will create around 50 jobs per annum during the three-year construction programme, with a further 25 operational jobs created on completion.
Neal Dale, Development Director at Inspired Villages, said: “This year alone, Inspired Villages has achieved planning to deliver 806 much needed age-specific homes across the UK. Construction at Elderswell marks a significant milestone for Inspired Villages and the development team, demonstrating our ability to move swiftly from planning to starting works. We have an important role to play in providing high quality later living housing across the UK; helping to address the social and economic issues that come as a result of an increasingly ageing population.”
Phil Bayliss, CEO of Later Living at Legal & General and Chairman of Inspired Villages, commented: “As much of the younger generation start to settle back into life as lockdown restrictions have eased, for our older members of society it is a different story. For many, their ‘new normal’ is extended isolation, with the risks still at the forefront of their minds. For the elderly who live alone, which is estimated at around 2.2 million over 75s in the UK, the prospect of indefinite isolation is like to have a sharp rise in the number of lonely people in this demographic. Retirement communities such as Inspired Villages have been proven to positively impact loneliness; ensuring that self-isolation isn’t isolating. A testament to our commitment to the sector, Inspired Villages has capital commitments of half a billion pounds across its villages, and a pipeline to deliver over 2,500 homes over the next six years. Elderswell represents just one of a number of key milestones already achieved this year; I look forward to maintaining this momentum and progressing with an active construction pipeline.”
