Connery is a strong advocate for dementia villages, saying that they offer dementia patients more freedom of movement, and the ability to participate in a greater number of daily activities compared with most care homes. In addition, she describes how many of the newer designs have invested in the latest GPS monitoring technologies, keeping patients safe while allowing staff to supervise residents in a less obtrusive manner.

However, dementia researchers say that while the Harmonia Village project is notable, the high costs involved in building these facilities mean that the NHS is unlikely to be able to fund dementia villages on a larger scale across the UK. Simon Evans, a researcher at the Association for Dementia Studies at the University of Worcester, points out that dementia villages in the Netherlands are funded by health insurers.

“In Holland, people tend to have health insurance, which of course we don’t in this country,” says Evans. “So if your needs increase as you get dementia later on in life, then your insurance will help pay for those housing and care options.”

For those considering paying to stay in privately owned dementia villages, such as Richmond Villages Willaston, the costs for residents are in the region of £1,100 to £1,600 per week, which is prohibitively high for most individuals.  

Philippa Fieldhouse, managing director of Richmond Care Villages, says that while some residents receive financial support from the local council, the majority are self-funded. “We want to show that these dementia villages are a real positive, and encourage the Government to support services like this,” she says.

However, Sube Banerjee, executive dean of the Faculty of Health at the University of Plymouth, also points out that even if more dementia villages were created in the UK, people would not necessarily choose to live in them, compared with the Netherlands and other European countries.

“In the Dutch and Scandinavian contexts, there’s much more public provision of good quality care homes,” he says. “So you’ve got that public expectation of great quality within care. Whereas in the UK, entirely understandably, people wish to stay in their own homes as long as possible.”

As well as funding, another major practical hurdle facing dementia villages in the UK is simply finding the space in which to build them. Researchers have found that many villages tend to be located in the countryside, which runs the risk of leaving residents relatively isolated from family and friends, something that can actually have a detrimental impact on their health.