RETIREMENT developer McCarthy & Stone says its plans to effectively double the size of its business show that confidence is returning to the economy.

The Bournemouth-based market leader plans to invest £2bn over the next four years in land and building.

A shake-up of its structure will see the launch of a new regional operation for the South West – leaving Dorset and Hampshire in a new Ringwood-based division along with Wiltshire and Oxfordshire.

Many of the company’s staff recently moved from Homelife House in Bournemouth to Ringwood, with the executive board and group support functions going to the former Abbey Life building in Bournemouth’s Holdenhurst Road.

There are around 300 staff across the region.

Shane Paull (CORRECT), regional managing director, will head the new southern region when it launches later this year

He said the company was responding to demographic trends, which show the number of households aged over 65 expected to rise from 11.4m in 2014 to 17.2m in 2033. Almost 60 per cent of those people would be looking to downsize.

“There are a number of trends which are subtle but we’re starting to see,” he said.

“More couples are living longer now and we’re seeing people become very wealth-conscious in terms of how they manage their assets. A lot of them have their assets within their property and see the ability to downsize and relocate to enjoy a longer, healthier retirement than in previous generations.”

He said: “We’ve got our three main products now – Retirement Living, which we’ve always been known for; Assisted Living, of which we’ve done a number of schemes locally; and our new offering, Ortus Homes. We’re just about to release the first of those in Swanage and we’re building in Compton Acres.

“With those three products and the demographics we’re all aware of, now seems the right time.”

An opening event at the showhome of the company’s new Retirement Living development Cormantle Court in Parsonage Barn Lane, Ringwood, is due to take place over the weekend, March 20-21.

Mr Paull added: “We’ve had a number of sales launches recently and they’ve gone very well which shows the demand is out there. We’ve got confidence despite the election and we believe there will be confidence over the next 3-5 years whatever the outcome of that election.”

Ortus Homes was born of research pointing to the large number of healthy and active retired people who were looking to downsize.

The company is conscious that retirements are longer and composed of more than one stage of life.

“In the past, with McCarthy and Stone, the core customer has been a single widow in maybe the late 70s,” said Mr Paull.

“In the past, we covered an age range of maybe 15 years from 72-87. If you look at the database of the people interested in our schemes, it really goes from 65 to 95.”

It was now possible for two generations of the same family to both be McCarthy and Stone customers, he said.

In recent times, developers have cited a shortage of construction skills as a brake on their activity, along with the traditional challenges of acquiring sites and the planning process.

Mr Paull said: “Land will remain a constraint for us but currently we are doing very well. Planning changes from one authority to the next. Several local authorities are very keen to see house building in the local area and are pragmatic, others are still very policy-led.”

Of the skills shortage, he said: “We’ve had two schemes this year that were delayed building starts because we haven’t been able to resource them efficiently enough. In particular, trades at the moment are much in demand.”

He added: “We’re working with Brockenhurst College and their construction college there to try and encourage younger people in the construction industry to see you can have a career in the industry – rather than a job in the early 20s that you get bored of and move into something else.”