Apartments next door sell for up to £7 million. Many share commanding views of the River Thames and have similar luxury furnishings within.
However, residents at a new development in central London will have amenities that their millionaire next-door neighbours simply won’t: on-site care around the clock.
Welcome to Bankhouse, which opens next month and is staking a claim to be one of Britain’s most sought-after and forward-looking retirement communities.
Its prime location means residents will be a stroll from the Oval, the Imperial War Museum and, just across the river, Tate Britain, with the South Bank and its cultural attractions a 25-minute walk away.
Should age catch up with them they will be able to call on a carer to check on their wellbeing, get them up and about, order and collect medication and help with social activities to counter the risk of isolation.
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On-site care is part of the package offered to residents who move into this shared-ownership development, provided by One Housing, a specialist care provider.
Extra care services are available at extra cost, such as dressing, bathing, using the lavatory and acting as a companion for a short walk or to attend a social event.
Housekeeping services such as cleaning, laundry, ironing and shopping are also available on demand.
The 36 flats are being built and subsidised by St James, a subsidiary of the high-end developer Berkeley Group, as a condition for approval to build three towers of private apartments on the site. This includes The Corniche, where the cheapest flat costs £3.6 million and penthouses are marketed at £22 million.
One and two-bedroom apartments in the Bankhouse, where prices range from £565,000 to £870,000, are reserved for people age 55 and over, who no longer work and who do not own another property.
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Residents will be able to buy a share of up to 75 per cent, and pay no rent on the remaining 25 per cent, which will be subsidised by the developer. A purchaser who buys a 60 per cent share will also have 25 per cent rent-free and pay rent on the balance of 15 per cent.
An annual fee of 0.75 per cent of the purchase price will pay for the core on-site care package, while the additional care and housekeeping services will cost about £19 an hour.
The building has communal facilities including a “floating” garden on the first floor between the tower and its illustrious neighbour. There is also a restaurant and bar, and a lounge for coffee mornings, clubs and activities including, inevitably and perhaps reassuringly, bingo.
It is seeking to appeal to a generation in their mid-fifties and sixties who might have sold their family home and moved to a comfortable, if a little torpid and isolated, retirement on the south coast or in the West Country and perhaps subsequently into a residential care.
“We have had a lot of interest in it,” Kay Mistry, sales adviser at Site Sales, which is marketing the flats, said. “It is for people who want a more dynamic life and to get a boost of energy from being in a vibrant area near museums, galleries and shows but who have care when they need it.”