Perseus News

Persues and Barwood Capital Regional Growth Fund V has acquired the former Margaret Clitherow Church in Bracknell. The site is a cleared 1.7 acres situated in a prominent spot off Ringmead in Bracknell.

The site was acquired unconditionally in a short timescale for an undisclosed sum with a fall-back outline planning consent in place for 15 residential apartments.

Perseus and its project team will be working up a care home scheme over the coming months having already hosted a positive pre-application meeting with Bracknell Forest.

William Chambers, Acquisitions Director at Perseus comments “ We are looking forward to working with Bracknell Forest and bringing forward this opportunity for the local community in Bracknell. Berkshire is favoured with operators and this particular location will have great kerbside appeal, it offers a good balance of prominence, favourable demographics and a healthy shortfall of supply, all within a mature woodland setting”.

Thanks to the wider project team including: AA Projects, Royal Haskoning, Syntegra, Progress Planning, Harris Irwin and TGA Trees.

If you have a similar land opportunities and want decisive action and certainty, give one of our team a call

Perseus has submitted its planning appeal for the Gershwin Boulevard/ Maltings Lane site in Witham, Essex. Following extensive public engagement which culminated in strong support from the Town Council and members of the public alike, we were extremely disappointed to be refused consent at planning committee on grounds of design. In fact, we remain fervently of the view that our scheme is of a far higher standard of design than its immediate surroundings , which are dominated by volume housing and an Aldi supermarket, and we look forward to presenting this to the Planning Inspectorate at the public hearing in June. 

The site comprises circa four acres of land forming part of a master-planned allocation on the south side of town, and the Perseus scheme includes a 70 bedroom care home, 44 residential units and a parade of neighbourhood retail shops.   

 Perseus’s Acquisitions Director, William Chambers, commented: “Whilst the planning system can be frustrating at times, it is important to have courage in your convictions. This project demonstrates we will persevere with our business plan despite the odd knock back. It would have been easy to walk away from this, but we believe our scheme and approach is appropriate for this location and we want to honour the commitment we made to the landowners.”

Perseus is delighted to announce that it has secured planning approval, at the second attempt, for its proposed 70-bedroom care home at Wyaston Road in Ashbourne.

The site was acquired unconditionally in collaboration with the Barwood 2017 Fund and comprises a former farmhouse, outbuildings and land which were effectively enveloped by the recent expansion of the town.

The completed home will be operated by our friends at Care Concern Group, and we wish them every success with it.

This deal is another example of Perseus’s willingness to acquire sites unconditionally on planning, even in provincial locations. So agents, please don’t be shy, and give us a try!

Perseus has completed the unconditional purchase of a 2.0-acre site on Groby Road in Glenfield, Leicester, benefitting from existing planning consent for nine large houses, and the company has submitted a planning application for a 74-bedroom care home.

Perseus’s Managing Director, Duncan Ford, commented: “Leicester has been good to me over the years, and this is the fourth site I have acquired in the city. Our care home operating partners consistently tell me that it offers a particularly good balance in terms of depth of population, decent average wealth, access to labour pools and lacklustre existing competition relative to its size”.

Once again, this deal emphasises Perseus’s ability to perform where others waver, especially in circumstances such as this where we can go unconditional on the back of an existing planning consent for alternative use which has nonetheless established the acceptability in principle of development.

Please hit us with similar opportunities, as we have plenty of capital looking for a home!

Following a competitive tender process, in collaboration with the Barwood Growth Fund V, Perseus has completed the unconditional purchase of Victoria House in Shooters Hill, Greenwich.

The site comprises circa 2.0 acres in total and is occupied by a locally listed former Officers’ Mess building constructed in 1909, which previously benefitted from planning permission to provide a 75-bedroom care home.

Perseus’s Managing Director, Duncan Ford, commented: “We are absolutely thrilled to have purchased this site, which forms part of a London-centric strategy we are pursuing to capitalise on the lower levels of competition we are seeing from developers specialising on other sectors including residential. It makes a pleasant change to do my site visits using the tube network!”

Perseus are currently preparing a planning application for a 76-bedroom care home scheme, which will entail the retention of the existing building façade and expect to submit this at the end of March this year.

Please get in touch if you have any other London sites to share with us, including those which house builders haven’t performed on. We will go down to 0.5 of an acre in the right locations and can move super-fast as always!

Following hot on the heels of its recent success in planning at Guildford, Perseus has received consent at appeal for its new 70-bedroom care home scheme in the town of West Malling in Kent.

The site was acquired on a subject to planning basis by Perseus in collaboration with the Barwood Growth Fund IV and benefitted from extant planning consent for a large tarmac car park.

Perseus’s Managing Director, Duncan Ford, commented: “We are delighted that the company’s first planning appeal has resulted in a successful outcome, and this is yet another example of a scheme which should never have gone to appeal in the first place, since our application was refused by the LPA on the grounds that it would impact adversely on the experience of travelling towards the listed St Mary’s Abbey located several hundred metres away on the opposite side of a railway embankment. This was despite neither Historic England nor Kent CC Heritage Team raising any objections, and written support for our proposals from Kent CC Social Services. We would like to thank Richard Harwood KC OBE and Gillings Planning for their knowledgeable assistance in countering what was a very poor initial planning decision”.

This project underscores Perseus’s persistence and willingness to grapple with some of the less straightforward sites in planning terms. Please do get in touch if you are aware of similar sites which might benefit from our expertise.

Perseus has successfully obtained planning consent at committee for a 60-bedroom care home on its site at Christmas Hill in Shalford, on the outskirts of Guildford.

The site was previously occupied by an existing care home known as Ashley House and was acquired unconditionally by Perseus in collaboration with the Barwood Growth Fund IV in a period of just eight weeks from agreement of heads of terms, allowing the private owners to start their hard-earned retirement without the stress of having to await the outcome of a planning application.  

The site is presently under development for a new care home which will be operated by our friends at Barchester Healthcare.  Thank you to  all members of the wider professional team who have made this scheme become a reality, including Gillings Planning, Harris Irwin Architects, Shoomiths LLP, TLP and Royal Haskoning.   

Perseus is seeking to acquire similar existing care home sites for redevelopment – please give us try, particularly if you’re not getting the service you deserve from other developers and see for yourself how quickly we move! 

Perseus Land and Developments has appointed a new acquisitions director to facilitate its expansion and capitalise on its strong pipeline of opportunities.

William Chambers, founder of PropSki, joins Perseus as a qualified chartered surveyor with over 14 years’ experience in real estate planning, investment and development, spanning across the care, retirement, residential and commercial sectors.

Will, joins from Barwood Capital, the Northampton-based UK regional real estate investment and development specialist, where he has spent three years as an investment director sourcing, acquiring, and managing development and investment opportunities within the healthcare and industrial markets.

Will was responsible for Barwood Capital’s diversification into the alternatives sector. He played a key role in Barwood Capital’s 2017 Fund investment into Perseus’s first care home projects and consequently has a close knowledge and understanding of the schemes and individuals at Perseus.

Whilst at Barwood Capital, Will has been responsible for the acquisition of some c.650,000sqft of commercial development projects with a GDV of more than £100m. Prior to Barwood Capital, Will was a director within JLL’s Capital Markets and Development team. Perseus will look to capitalise on Will’s knowledge and network within the healthcare and commercial markets.

Will Chambers “It is a very exciting time to join the expanding Perseus business. Having had the opportunity to work closely with the team, I am incredibly impressed and looking forward to this next chapter. They are a dynamic and very entrepreneurial outfit with out and out specialism within the planning, enabling and development sphere of the care home and retirement sectors. I look forward to working with Duncan and the team as we seek to grow the business. We will continue to maintain a close alliance with Barwood Capital as we move forward”.

This latest appointment follows the recent news that Melville Knight will be joining Perseus as Chairman. Mel has been responsible for the negotiation and delivery of a substantial amount of bespoke turnkey and pre-let care home development projects throughout his career. Perseus will be able to leverage his array of contacts at the highest level within many healthcare operating and funding businesses.
Over the last two years, Perseus has secured 12 sites for specialist care and retirement living and has a strong pipeline to continue its growth within the sector.

Perseus Land & Developments Limited, in collaboration with the Barwood Property 2017 Fund, has submitted a planning application for a 64-bedroom care home and 9 houses on a site of 2.0 acres at Wysaton Road in Ashbourne, Derbyshire.

Perseus’s Managing Director, Duncan Ford, commented: “I have long been aware of Ashbourne’s allure as a place to live, with its picturesque town centre and excellent accessibility to the Derbyshire Dales, the Peak District and the major cities of the East Midlands. The sheer volume of sheltered retirement schemes in the town underlines its popularity among older people, and it therefore seemed entirely logical to acquire a site there for the development of a high quality care home and family housing. The site is located opposite Hilltop Primary School and adjacent to a high quality new residential development by Redrow Homes, known as Henmore Gardens. We would welcome expressions of interest in the scheme from care home operators and local house builders alike”.

Perseus would like to convey its special thanks to WR Dunn Architects and Gillings Planning for their support in formulating our proposals.

Perseus Land and Developments, the developer of bespoke care homes, retirement and residential accommodation for the later living sector, in collaboration with the Barwood Property 2017 Fund, has submitted a planning application for a 70-bedroom nursing home scheme in Wallington, South London.

The site, comprising circa 1.7 acres of brownfield land, is located immediately adjacent to Wallington School for Girls and Dobbie’s Woodcote Green Garden Centre, one of the biggest in Greater London. The proposed nursing home will be dementia-led and the 1.5-storey building design will sit low in the landscape, in a similar fashion to our recently consented scheme at Weybridge.

Perseus’s Managing Director, Duncan Ford, commented “Getting to this stage has not been easy, with a messy legal title to resolve and third party access land to acquire, and it is a good example of how we are able to use our skills set as developers to unlock the vast potential of a Grade A site where others shied away and didn’t do what they said they would do. I loved the location of this site from the outset, and in particular, I anticipate the future care home residents, their friends and family making great use of the facilities within the adjacent garden centre, which include a restaurant, two coffee shops, a farm shop and various other retail concessions. I should add that our neighbours, Dobbie’s, has been fantastic to work with, and its management team has kindly offered to supply plants and expertise free of charge to the future care home residents. This promises to be another fantastic Perseus scheme”.