Audley Court - October 2008
MREF II acquired Audley Court Limited (previously Raven Audley Court plc), following several years of research into the retirement housing sector.
Audley is one of the UK’s leading developers and operators of Independent Living facilities for the elderly. The group’s retirement villages typically provide apartments/bungalows and houses on heritage sites and incorporate a feature building at the heart of the community to provide facilities that would normally be expected in a country house hotel, including extensive social and leisure facilities. Importantly, Audley also provides a domiciliary care service to the residents and people within the local community. This care service means that residents move in knowing they should not need to move again or be forced into a residential care home. This accommodation enables residents to retain their independence within a safe environment.
The group has a number of villages at different stages of development throughout the UK:
- One fully developed scheme, Willicombe Park, which is situated an hour from central London in Tunbridge Wells and has 67 apartments and cottages together with a club house that provides communal facilities and domiciliary care to residents.
- Four schemes under development in both the South East and the North of England: St Elphins Park in Matlock (127 units); Clevedon in Ilkley (98 units); Inglewood in Berkshire (96 units) and Mote House in Kent (87 Units).
In addition the company manages two further schemes that it developed previously, the ownership of which will remain outside the Audley group.
Key Features of Audley Schemes include:
- Located in areas that have a sizeable affluent population and where the only alternatives to a retirement village are a care home or relying on in-house help / domiciliary care.
- Domiciliary care is provided on site to a resident’s apartment on an hourly basis.
- All apartments have emergency alarms connected 24 hours a day and 7 days a week to the onsite care service.
- Audley staff are trained to remain vigilant to care requirements without imposing regimes or restricting privacy.
- Audley residents acquire their homes on long leases rather than rent them and pay a monthly management charge of c. £600, meaning that less capital is eroded than under rental models.
The Audley Group is headed by Nick Sanderson who has several decades of experience in the development of care facilities and who has recently been appointed Chair of the newly formed Association of Retirement Village Operators, UK.