The first five homes at an innovative new care village in Reepham have launched for sale, combining luxury living space with round-the-clock care as and when residents need it.
Once complete, Ash Tree Care Village will offer a collection of 15 luxury two-bedroom bungalows, 18 apartments and a community-focused club house featuring an orangery, bistro, library and lounge, all set within around four acres of landscaped grounds.
The site is part of director Tony Prendergast’s innovative approach to elderly care, which he says helps to extend people’s independence in a care setting without being a formal care home.
Residents can enjoy all the benefits of owning their own home while being part of a community of like-minded retirees, with activities, events and days out organised monthly, as well as a high level of personal care as and when they need it. “We call it a village because it’s a sort of mini community,” he says.
“It’s very much independent living but with the top-up of care, keeping people independent as long as possible and engaged as well,” he says. “We’ll provide activities on the site, people will be calling in on all the residents every single day, people will be roaming around – nobody’s going to be left in the community on their own.”
The new site in Reepham follows on from Carlton Hall near Lowestoft, a much larger community care village which Mr Prendergast bought and developed in 2008.
Properties there sell out within a week, he says, and follow the standard purchasing process – it’s no different than buying any other property on the open market – although residents also pay a supplementary fee of around £140 each week.
That fee covers staffing costs, including up to two hours of care per week per person, as well as subsidised meals and maintenance. The new site at Reepham will offer the same.
“All the grounds are maintained for them, all the exterior of the buildings are maintained for them, so it’s really a case of low workload and high support if you need it,” says Mr Prendergast. The support available is “menu-driven”, allowing residents to pick and choose the level of
care they need.
“It’s 24/7, 365-day care. We have carers on site that are permanently based there. All the residents will have call bells and it’s a very clever computerised system now, so we can have monitoring systems within the bungalows themselves and will be able to tell from a computer screen, someone sitting there, if someone’s fallen and problems in the night. They could call out and say ‘help’ or whatever they needed at that point and we can get to them within a very short period of time.
“We can have meals delivered to the bungalows if they require, they have their own kitchen inside so they can have their own cooking if they want to and we also provide staff who will cook with them if they want to. All options are available, plus the dining experience within the clubhouse, which will be subsidised as well. We’ll have a chef on site all the time.”
The first five bungalows at Ash Tree Care Village launched for sale this weekend, and are priced at £325,000.
Each bungalow offers two bedrooms, kitchen, living and dining areas and a shower room and all are high-end and beautifully designed. They’ve been built using sustainable materials and decorated in a range of complementary colours, with good-sized rooms and large windows which let in lots of natural light. Most windows also look out over the gardens.
The kitchens are well-fitted with a range of soft-close units and quartz worktops, as well
as ceramic tiles and some integrated appliances, and the shower rooms are luxurious but practical too, featuring step-free shower trays.
The properties are well-insulated, fitted with UPVC double-glazing and also include smart meters and energy-efficient LED lighting. Underfloor heating is also provided throughout, with the heating and hot water to all properties supplied by energy-efficient air source heat
pumps.
Each bungalow also comes with its own allocated car parking space.
For more information, contact selling agent William H Brown on 01603 873208 or visit ashtreecarevillage.co.uk
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