Larkfleet Homes has sold land to a specialist provider for the development of a care unit as part of the ‘continuing care retirement community’ (CCRC), which the company is creating in Oakham, Rutland. A 60-bed specialist care home will be developed over the next 12 months.
In addition to the care home, the CCRC will have 62 one and two-bedroom homes for ‘independent living’ and 54 properties for ‘assisted living’ for people with particular care needs. These will be built by Larkfleet under its award winning The Croft brand for retirement properties.
Larkfleet started clearance work on site earlier this year and will soon be putting in the essential infrastructure such as roads and water supplies needed to permit construction of the new homes. The first homes by The Croft should be available for new owners during the Spring of 2019.
Larkfleet Homes CEO Karl Hick says: “This is a big step forward for the project and allows us to advance development of this much-needed facility in Oakham. There is an urgent need for this type of accommodation to meet the needs of the increasing number of elderly people in the county.
“Putting independent living, assisted living and care home provision on the same site means that if people need to move from one type of accommodation to another as their care needs increase, they do not have to move away from family, friends and the social networks that they have built up. It can mean, for example, that if one half of a couple needs to move into the care home, his or her partner can remain in the independent living part of the development within easy walking distance.”
The CCRC is part of Larkfleet’s Oakham Heights development – a major urban expansion of Oakham being built on land between the Oakham bypass and Barleythorpe Road.
Larkfleet's first development under The Croft brand at Bourne in Lincolnshire won a Silver Award in the keenly-contested Best Retirement Development category in the prestigious WhatHouse? Awards in 2014. The following year The Croft at Baston, also in Lincolnshire, was shortlisted in the same award and was named runner-up in the HouseBuilder Awards for best retirement housing.
In total, more than 800 high quality homes – including 'affordable' homes for local people – will eventually be constructed in several phases at Oakham Heights as part of a development programme running until around 2027.
In addition to new housing, the plans include offices, parks and open spaces, children's play areas, allotments and a new local centre. The plans also include a new hotel with an adjoining pub/restaurant, planting a substantial number of new trees, enhancements to the ecology of Barleythorpe Brook which runs through the site and improved transport links with new cycle, footpath and bus routes.
Integral parts of the development will be a new permanent enhanced and enlarged home for the Rutland County Show and new improved facilities for the town's football, rugby and other clubs.
The Oakham Heights CCRC will create around 90 jobs for local people.
