Legal & General’s later living business, Inspired Villages, has acquired a 12-acre site in Caddington, Bedfordshire. The site has been acquired with outline planning permission to develop 200 specialist age-appropriate homes, delivering much needed housing stock to meet local demand and is expected to have a gross development value of £120 million on completion.
”Playing an important role in a post-crisis economic bounce back, this new scheme will see £90 million invested into the local economy, creating more than 70 construction jobs per annum over its six-year build period, and 32 permanent jobs once complete,” said the company in a statement.
When complete, the Caddington scheme will benefit from a restaurant, café, wellness centre (comprising a swimming pool, fitness studio and gym), library and cinema room. In keeping with Inspired Villages’ ethos of creating communities in and around its villages, many of these facilities will be available to both residents and the local community.
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”This acquisition follows Inspired Villages planning consent, received last week, to develop one of the UK’s largest retirement communities in Surrey. As Inspired Villages continues to expand, it will play a key role in providing high quality later living housing to the UK through which we can address the social and economic issues linked to the UK’s ageing population, said Phil Bayliss, CEO of Later Living at Legal & General.
”This is an exceptional match for Legal & General’s long term capital. Our current pipeline is testament to the business’ commitment to invest through and beyond the Covid-19 crisis. In helping our residents live in good health for longer, we continue help to take some of the strain off the NHS and social care system that has been exacerbated by the pandemic,” he added.
”It is fantastic that Central Bedfordshire Council has recognised the urgent need for more age-appropriate housing for the over 65s and approved our plans for a retirement village in Caddington. Our retirement community model focuses on holistic wellbeing, which means this scheme will offer a high quality later living experience that will help older people live healthy, independent lives for longer. We have worked alongside the land owner over the last 18 months in achieving this milestone and now look forward to progressing matters to a start on site early next year, said Neal Dale, Development Director at Inspired Villages Group.
