Work starts on 270 extra care homes as part of community
MELBOURNE: Work has commenced on the creation of 270 energy-efficient extra care apartments.
The housing association Torus is investing £95m across two sites in Southport and Maghull.
Steel frames will be made to measure offsite, craned into place then clad in brick onsite, cutting construction time by approximately seven months compared to traditional masonry-built structures.
In Blowick Moss Lane, Southport 141 properties will be constructed in a £50m development that has been supported by more than £11m from the government’s housing and regeneration agency, Homes England.
Of these, 118 apartments will be in the main extra care facility, 18 in two separate independent living buildings and five mews houses.
The £44m Maghull development sees 129 properties being built on land off Damfield Lane in between an existing retirement village and a dementia care home.
Torus’s development will be a mix of one and two-bed affordable rent apartments with open plan kitchen-living spaces and private balconies.
Homes England has provided is excess of £10m in grant funding towards the cost of the scheme.
Managing director of Torus Developments, Chris Bowen, said: “Providing high-quality, purpose-built properties for the area’s ageing population is vitally important.
“These two extra-care schemes will provide everything people need to live independently or with some additional support.
“As a strategic partner of Homes England, we are committed to building homes using modern methods of construction and it will make a considerable saving of around seven months by making the gauge steel frame in a factory and craning it into place.”
The scheme in Southport will be built by Caddick Construction with Eric Wright Construction delivering the Maghull development. Both will be completed in 2028.