£52m funding for ‘Golden Triangle’ retirement village

More than £52m of funding has been secured to support the development of a luxury retirement village in Yorkshire’s ‘Golden Triangle’.Fortwell Capital, principal lender to developers and investors within the UK and Ireland, has financed a £52.1m loan facility to the joint venture (JV) between retirement village provider Audley Group and Schroders Capital’s UK Retirement Living Fund (ReLF), advised by Octopus Real Estate.The loan will be used to fund the construction of Scarcroft Park, a 128-unit retirement village to the north east of Leeds, within Yorkshire’s ‘Golden Triangle’ between Leeds, Harrogate and York.Scarcroft Park, which will be operated by Audley Group, will comprise 22 cottages and 106 two-bedroom apartments, and is the fourth project undertaken by the JV, which was formed in 2019 to develop retirement villages. The JV has 500 units in total, representing a total value of £400m.The Scarcroft Park site was purchased, with full planning consent, by the JV in Q2 2021, with construction set to begin this month.The site includes Scarcroft Lodge, a grade II-listed former mansion house built in 1830 that was previously used as offices by Npower.The deal marks the first dedicated retirement village loan for Fortwell Capital, which has provided circa £400m of funding to care home developers and operators since 2014.Fortwell was advised by Knight Frank (valuation), CBRE (project monitoring) and Taylor Wessing (legal).