THERE are not nearly enough retirement developments in Britain.

That’s the view of the chief executive at McCarthy & Stone, the Bournemouth-based company which can claim to have invented such developments 40 years ago.

Forty years after Waverley House in New Milton pioneered retirement housing as we now know it, Clive Fenton points out that demand is increasing.

“There are something like 11.6million people over 65 in the UK. That’s forecast to rise by around 50 per cent over the next 20 years to 17.2m,” he said.

“If you take over-75s, that’s expected to increase by about 85 per cent at the same time. The over-85s to increase by 130 per cent.

“If you look at our very best prospective customer, people over 75 who have probably something between £250,000-£500,000 worth of equity in their existing property, there are something like 900,000 households in the country that fit that category – and there have only ever been 141,000 specialist retirement properties built for sale in this country.

“That’s why we think we’ve got this opportunity to grow.”

McCarthy & Stone’s story began when builder John McCarthy read about the latest government thinking on retirement housing in the 1970s. He also came across a newspaper advert for a plot of land in New Milton.

He and business partner Bill Stone believed housing with an obvious social benefit would be more likely to win planning approval, and there was an opportunity to develop an alternative to institutional warden-controlled blocks.

Today, one of the company’s newest developments, Horizons, overlooks Poole Park at Parkstone Road. It is not yet fully open, but 40 out of 60 flats are sold, and half were sold off-plan.

The development is one of McCarthy & Stone’s assisted living schemes – designed for people with a slightly higher level of need, who can buy personal care packages as well as benefitting from round-the-clock support and domestic help.

“Assisted living is 10 years old but in the last few years it’s grown to become about a third of our portfolio,” said Mr Fenton.

“We’re finding we get a lot of demand from mainly people in their late 70s to early 80s, where they need a bit more support.

“They’re fully capable of living independently but with that much more support.”

The development includes a restaurant where lunch costs £4, a lounge, rooms for visiting relatives, and viewing platforms so that even those on the lower floors can take in the scenery.

McCarthy & Stone is marking its 40th anniversary with a charity drive to raise £130,000 for the Royal Voluntary Service.

The company now has around 70 per cent of the retirement housing market. That market is dominated by a handful of names (one of the other key players, Churchill Retirement Living, is run by John McCarthy’s sons). Those existing players benefit from decades of experience in developing their product, Mr Fenton said.

“It’s quite a high barrier to entry. You really need to understand what you’re doing,” Mr Fenton said.

“I can see other housebuilders finding it very difficult to come into those markets.”

McCarthy & Stone was floated on the unlisted securities market in 1982 and was fully listed on the Stock Exchange in 1984 as it expanded rapidly.

“The company was de-listed in 2006 and taken private just at the wrong time,” said Mr Fenton, just before the banking crisis and property slump.

“The private equity owners who ended up owning the company in 2013 put in a new management team including myself with the aim of floating it back on the public market, which we achieved in 2015.”

The company became a fully listed FTSE 250 company again.

“The strategy really is to take the business, which was at that point producing around 1,500 homes, and effectively double the size of it to around 3,000 homes.

“We’re about half way through that goal,” said Mr Fenton.

“We said we’d invest £2.5billion over four years to achieve that growth. We’re half way through that investment programme.”

There are around 170 staff at the head office in Holdenhurst Road. The southern regional base in Ringwood employs around 60, or 130 including those out on sites, and is aiming to build around 400 homes a year.

The needs of the retired are changing. Wi-Fi has become a requirement and Horizons includes charging points for electric cars.

McCarthy & Stone has also commissioned research into how smart technologies could transform independent living in the coming decades.

The resulting report, Neighbourhoods of the Future, by the Agile Ageing Alliance, includes elements that might sound like science fiction.

Within 20 years, older people are likely to be living in “cognitive homes” that can assess and manage their needs and desires, it says. Older people will be able to wear assistive body suits and exoskeletons to take the strain out of domestic tasks and getting about. Intelligent walking aids will support those with mobility problems and contact carers if they fall.

What’s more, assistive robots could provide domestic service in the home.

But if people are to take advantage of these homes of the future, developers need to find enough land.

McCarthy & Stone has urged government to offer more incentives for people to downsize and free up homes for families.

There are 7.7m spare bedrooms in the ownership of over-55s looking to downsize, the company says – around 20 years of housing supply.

A third of home owners over 55 have more than £100,000 in equity in their homes. McCarthy & Stone argues that releasing those homes on the market can also put large amounts of money back into the economy.

“We’re quite encouraged by the latest white paper the government have put out because there were some very interesting things about looking at planning policy and ensuring that local authorities plan properly, not just for their housing needs in general but for their specific older housing need,” said Mr Fenton.

“Whereas the previous government was really interested in first time buyers, I think this new administration is looking across a much wider spectrum of the housing and market and recognising there’s no easy solution that’s going to solve the country’s housing problems,” he added.