70m retirement village planned for West Lancs



A man's dream to create £70 million pound pensioner's villages in West Lancashire is close to being realised.

Leslie Connor, 76, put all his energy into establishing state of the art retirement centres in the region after losing his wife Jean in 2005.

"I've been working on this for three years because my wife had Alzheimers and a lot of other complaints and I experienced the difficulty of caring for someone," he said.

Leslie estimated that caring for his wife at home had cost him in excess of £100,000 a year.

The idea for the centres came about after Leslie and his daughter Hilary visited a similar scheme near York.  Leslie vowed that people in West Lancashire would have the same care and set up the Jean and Leslie Connor Charitable Foundation.

He said that after his wife died there was "no point to life" for him until the centre gave him renewed focus.

"When I'm dead and gone I like to think that there is something lasting that will do good for a lot of people," he said.

The plan is a joint venture with the Arena Housing Group and the vision is for an initial village, possibly off Prescot Road in Aughton and if that is successful another for Skelmersdale. "If we were able to proceed, we would then wish to propose a similar village in Skelmersdale, though at this stage no suitable site has been identified," said Leslie.

"The village would be a genuine home for life and residents need not fear having to move out if they develop a long-term illness," he said.

"It wouldn't be a place where everyone goes to die it would be a vibrant, healthy community where people would help each other."

A spokesperson for the Aughton development painted a picture of a utopian community where everything a pensioner could need is available to them.

"The village for over 55s would encompass a 38-acre site and provide 240 one and two bed cottages and up to 60 apartments," they said.

"There would also be specialist care for people with dementia and associated conditions and extensive community facilities including a restaurant, fitness centre, bowling green, tennis court, putting green, allotments and greenhouses.

"Many of the facilities would also be available to the local community."

The proposal will be presented to residents on July 12 at Aughton Village Hall.

Leslie said: "It has taken a lot of work in order to prepare these plans and bring them to the point where we can now present them to the people of Aughton and West Lancashire. I hope that residents will make every effort to attend our open day on the July 12 and give us some feedback on our proposal."

The plan is the latest for elderly provision in West Lancashire after the County Council, district council and PCT recently announced their proposal for a £20 million centre on Aughton Street in Ormskirk.

Leslie said: "We are obviously aware of the recent funding application to redevelop the former Brookside care home in Ormskirk and fully support that application. It is a sobering thought however, that even if the Aughton, Skelmersdale and Ormskirk proposals were all to proceed that they would still not have enough capacity to meet the projected needs of the West Lancashire community."

The open day on the Aughton development will be held from 2-7pm on Saturday July 12 at Aughton Village Hall.



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