Retirement reimagined

IF YOU have ever considered moving to a retirement development, the chances are you want to downsize from a larger family home and use the proceeds to supplement your pension and fund a more leisurely lifestyle. After all, that's how retirement accommodation providers market most of their schemes, particularly one and two-bed apartment blocks.

- By Deborah Stone

Retirement villages are a different species altogether, though, and not just because they have super on-site amenities ranging from gyms and pools to bistros and bars. They're increasingly being built in a variety of on-site styles, so you might have bungalows as well as apartments and they could be made from stone or in a local style. They could even be a former stately home.

Audley Villages' new Shiplake Meadows, for instance, not only has two and three-bedroom apartments but also duplex apartments and two to three-bedroom cottages built to look like traditional buildings found anywhere in the South Oxfordshire countryside.

Each property has either a balcony, terrace or private garden and all owners have access to landscaped gardens surrounded by mature trees.