THE company behind the major Siddington Park development on the edge of Cirencester has revealed why work has stopped.

Rangeford was granted permission last year to build a retirement village complete with dozens of apartments, a restaurant, swimming pool and care home on land off the A419.

Contractors began an extensive redesign of the road layout but just as work seemed to be ramping up it suddenly ground to a halt, and no one has been seen at the site for several months.

Rumours abounded that the company had run out of money but the Standard can now confirm that Rangeford has opted to submit a new planning application which seeks to redesign much of the retirement village.

Marketing director Honor Barratt explained they decided to change the layout after seeing the results of their recently-built Wadswick Green development in Wiltshire.

“We got planning originally for lots of apartments and a central care home. Since then we’ve built down in Corsham and what we found was that most people don’t want a care home, they want a guarantee they can die in their own home,” she said.

“We felt confident that we wanted to change the planning and decided to take out the care home.”

The changes, which have been under the architect’s pen for around a year, will see the large central building which was going to house the care home lose one of its storeys and some of the one-bed apartments turned into two or three bed apartments.

”We also found people want more space. Although people are downsizing they are downsizing from big houses and do not want 1,000sq ft, they want 1,800sq ft,” she added.

Rangeford also decided to move the restaurant to the front of the building where it will be accessible to the public all year round.

The new application has been submitted to Cotswold District Council and will be decided in the coming months.