Britain is a long way behind Australia in its penetration of retirement villages but that is rapidly changing due to the aggressive development model championed by builder McCarthy & Stone. They have 70% of the village market and have just announced they are committing £2.5 billion (AUS$5.3 billion) to buy land over the next four years.
The UK has 128,000 village units compared to Australias 150,000 but they have a population of 65 million.