FT933-1024 _AN-DIZABAECFT 930925 FT 25 SEP 93 / Survey of Residential Property (3): How to remain independent in old age - What are the priorities of elderly people when choosing a new home? Gerald Cadogan finds out what is on offer / Retirement homes By GERALD CADOGAN HOW ARE gran and grandpa? Carrying on, ever plucky but less able to cope? Is it time to say 'You can't spend another winter in this house, mummy,' and ask them to live with you? That would be the way in Mediterranean countries. A British variant is to put them in a granny flat next door to you. Or you can suggest buying a flat or house in a retirement home. For many old people it is the best solution - if it is a high-quality, well-run place. Retirement homes maintain grandparents' independence. If you are ageing but not incapacitated - the average for entering homes in the Pegasus group is 73.5 years - you continue to have a base that is yours with your own things around you, or what you keep of them after distributing the chattels from your old house - in a pre-emptive strike against your children's squabbling over them when you are gone. You have company, of people of similar background who have had similar experiences. And you have protection, which is why retirement homes are also called sheltered housing. A warden/administrator is on duty or at the end of a red emergency button all the time. They are not nurses, but can arrange nursing and will check that you are alright if you have not been out for a day or two. (If you are chronically ill, you need a residential home.) They also call the plumber, make sure the dustbins are out and have the windows cleaned. For the service charge, retirement homes free you from building maintenance. Top-class specialist developers such as (in alphabetical order) Beechcroft, Bovis, English Courtyard Association, McCarthy & Stone, and Pegasus, are coming through the recession, and the market is picking up well. But some companies - both big ones and local speculative builders - thought rejigged starter homes would suffice for the old. They do not. This has led to an overhang of 'sheltered flats' in the market, which discourages the banks from putting up money for new schemes, Henry Thornton of Beechcroft notes. Choose your scheme carefully is the corollary, and look closely at the service for the residents. Is it easy to walk to the shops? How near are airports, railway stations and motorways? Beechcroft's University Farm scheme in Moreton-in-Marsh (a joint venture with Nationwide Housing Trust) has a rare plus. It is in a Cotswold town that has a station at the end of the High Street. And Pegasus's Grandpont scheme, now being built as a joint venture with Brasenose College, just south of Folly Bridge, Oxford, on the former Oxford City football ground, is surprisingly close to the middle of the city. Old people like activity, or watching it. Michael McCarthy, of Pegasus, finds that the first units to go in a development overlook the drive or the main entrance. Good schemes are often built around a courtyard, giving a sense of community neighbourliness that people living in city terraces are used to. They may incorporate an existing building that gives the reassurance of continuity. Pegasus's scheme at Brackley, in Northamptonshire, is designed around a solid Edwardian building which used to be a boarding house for Magdalen College School, and at Cerne Abbas, in Dorset, Beechcroft has a tithe barn and a meadow beside the River Cerne. The units are usually flats or cottage-sized houses that can be arranged for buyers' preferences, sometimes by knocking two units into one. Size varies. Grandpont will be the largest in Britain with 101 units, including 42 family houses with gardens to include young marrieds with children as well. Beechcroft's scheme in Odiham, Hampshire, will have just 18 cottages, and English Courtyard's Framers Court at Lane End, near Marlow, Buckinghamshire, 17 cottages, six maisonettes and four flats. Inside they are planned to help the old unobtrusively. That means doors wide enough for wheelchairs, living rooms that will convert into downstairs bedrooms and plugs at knee to waist height. But Pegasus does not install grips and rails around the bath until people ask. It helps planning, McCarthy says, to visit buyers' old homes to see how they live. Some schemes expect residents to instal their own washing machines. Others have communal laundry rooms. Any problems? Ask the warden. In Brackley she knows the house well as she had been the house matron when it was part of the school. Other amenities may include a guest suite, a common room and a restaurant. A three-course lunch with coffee in Brackley costs Pounds 3.75. Pegasus is including restaurants on all its new schemes as part of the service although they do not make money. It also puts some of its profits into the Pegasus Trust, to help with emergencies such as hospital operations or wheelchair provision. McCarthy, who has a doctorate in social studies and has written The New Politics of Welfare, stresses that good retirement home management is 'anticipating progressive need.' Residents can then cope for many years. It is not the aim to push them out. And if the scheme has a swimming pool, there is no better exercise. So who are the occupants? At Oxford they are dons, librarians and clergy. At Brackley they are engineers, doctors, teachers and businessmen. Nowadays, couples often decide to make the move together. Prices for Pegasus average Pounds 102,500. The Beechcroft Cerne Abbas cottages cost Pounds 135,000-Pounds 185,000. At Radlett, in Hertfordshire, Bovis has flats from Pounds 97,500 to Pounds 135,000, and English Courtyard's new developments range from Pounds 130,000 (a flat at Ilminster in Somerset) to Pounds 215,000 (a cottage near Marlow in Buckinghamshire). The service charge at Brackley is Pounds 23 a week including water but not council tax. Whether leasehold or freehold, selling on should not be difficult. With a greying population it is a growth market. From 1961 to 1989 over-80s increased from 2 per cent to 4 per cent of the population and over-65s from 12 to 16 per cent, and will rise to 19 per cent by 2021 and 22 per cent by 2031. The sector, McCarthy says, is a 'still embryonic' large market, where the homes can meet needs that fragmented families cannot. He values development companies which run their own management. It makes a better planned way of helping us to grow old pleasantly. Further information on schemes around the country from: Beechcroft (0491-834975); Bovis (0582-766661); English Courtyard Association (071-937-4511); McCarthy & Stone (0932-336099); Pegasus (0234-240044). Countries:- GBZ United Kingdom, EC. Industries:- P6531 Real Estate Agents and Managers. P6514 Dwelling Operators, Ex Apartments. P6513 Apartment Building Operators. Types:- CMMT Comment & Analysis. The Financial Times London Page V