McCarthy Stone has appointed Ciaran Aldridge as its new Managing Director for its Northern division.

Ciaran is responsible for running its Northern division, whose regional head office is in York. The Northern division is currently selling across 28 developments. The division also has 11 retirement communities under construction and its land team is looking to buy at least 12 new sites per year.

Ciaran joins from Aldi, where he was National Property Director since 2016, responsible for coordinating Aldi’s property strategy and for expanding the business. He was at Aldi for 16 years.

Ciaran will manage the division’s land and construction budget which will total circa £250m over the next three years.

John Tonkiss, Chief executive, said: “I’m delighted to welcome Ciaran to the business. He has superb knowledge and experience of the development world given his time at Aldi and will be integral to helping us open new high-quality and affordable retirement communities across the north”.

Ciaran added: “Our ageing population means we need to provide more and better housing options for those in later life so I’m hugely excited about joining McCarthy Stone. I will use my extensive experience of the land market to help more older people enjoy the many benefits of living in a retirement community.”

Ciaran will also be responsible for rolling out McCarthy Stone’s new multi tenure and affordability strategy in the north that is helping older homeowners with lower equity levels buy a retirement property. This strategy is centred around providing private rental options as well as a new affordable shared ownership tenure, where customers can purchase up to 75% of a retirement apartment. McCarthy Stone is also constructing a significant proportion of its future sites with Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), helping it to build faster, greener and more affordably than before. It’s first 100% MMC development opened in Hexham in Northumbria in 2021.