Work starts on third retirement community in Ewell

Retirement living specialist Birchgrove starts work on their third retirement community in three years in Ewell village, south west London. The company is re-developing a 1.3-acre site to provide 53 high quality independent and assisted living apartments for rent. The development will be known as Lower Mill Apartments.

Having opened its first retirement community in Sidcup in May this year and started work on another scheme in Woking earlier this year, Birchgrove is on a fast development path which stems from the backing of Bridges Fund Management.

With the Ewell site, Birchgrove added considerable development value to the site in less than a year, through the planning process which involved getting planning permission and listed building consent from the local borough of Epsom and Ewell.

The construction contract has been awarded to Castleoak, a market specialist for care, retirement and assisted living. A further six to eight Birchgrove developments are to be built across the south east of England over the next five years, providing 600 homes.

Honor Barratt, Managing Director of Birchgrove says: “Rental accommodation is becoming increasingly attractive to today’s retirees who don’t want to go through the hassle of buying another property.”

The proposed apartments will permit both independent and assisted living and will feature elegant interiors, generous living spaces and sufficiently wide doors for residents using a wheelchair or walking frame. Once completed, residents will have access to numerous onsite facilities such as a restaurant, café, club room, library, wellbeing and fitness suite, as well as the communal gardens.

Castleoak will start by preparing the construction site, with demolition of the existing buildings beginning in early October. In November, they will then start piling for the foundations of the main buildings.