Fortwell Capital, principal lender to developers and investors within the UK and Ireland and attend to UKREiiF, has provided a new £10.1 million development loan to purpose-built care home developer and operator, Evermore Care, enabling the construction of a new Lancashire care home.

The loan will be used to fund the construction of Astley View, a 90-bed care home in Chorley, Lancashire. The new facility will provide a retail street and bring the outside in with a galleried café that opens onto a corridor of trees through to landscaped gardens. Evermore Care delivered the planning approval from a brownfield site to their own specification and once open it will be a state-of-the-art care home, setting a new, high standard for the local market.

Nick White, Associate Director, Fortwell Capital, said, “With Evermore Care we welcome the opportunity to work with a new first-class sponsor experienced in delivering schemes that offer the highest quality of residential care. State-of-the-art schemes like Astley View have proven their resilience in the market and will continue to be a central focus of Fortwell’s lending strategy, as long as there is a shortage of purpose-built space in the UK and demand for specialist finance to power much needed development.”

Since 2014, Fortwell Capital has lent over £450 million to purpose-built care home and retirement living developers, helping to create over £850 million of value within the senior living sector.

Syd Coombes, Managing Director, Evermore Care, said, “Fortwell Capital was our lender of choice when seeking development funding for our second home. Astley View builds on our recent success at Ashton Manor in Lancaster where we developed and now operate one of the top-rated care homes in the North West. The new home will bring the highest standards of care to Chorley, within a state-of-the-art facility. Fortwell’s successful track-record record as a specialist finance partner in the sector spoke volumes about their expertise during the due diligence period. Our goal is to develop eight more high quality care facilities in the next five years and we look forward to expanding our partnership with Fortwell as we actively seek to appraise and develop new sites that fit our stringent development criteria.”

The loan to Evermore Care immediately follows Fortwell’s £51.2 million loan to the JV between Audley Group and ReLF for a new retirement village in October 2021, marking the expansion of its lending scope within the senior living sector to include dedicated retirement living schemes in addition to care homes.