"Build more homes for older people"
By Tony Watts - Editor - 15/08/2007
The current housing situation represents the economics of the madhouse. Millions of young people cannot afford to buy their own homes as the nationwide shortage pushes up prices: in some areas, a house costs eight, even ten times the average local annual salary.
And while many new apartments are being built, these are almost all one and two bedroom flats and are being snapped up by investors as “buy to let” accommodation for single people and couples – very few larger apartments are built for families… because families want houses with gardens. Last year, 167,000 new housing units were built against a target of 250,000 – a shortfall that has been going on year after year, inexorably adding to the crisis.
The Government’s answer is to push for three million new homes. Many – because of land shortages – will be on floodplains.
Our contention is that meeting the housing needs of older people could hold the key to the crisis.
How? Let’s look at the statistics. By 2031 there will be 15.3 million people in this country aged 65 and over – 50% more than there are today. Most will be in single or two-people households. Many will be in houses that are too large for their needs.
The country could cut through the “Gordian knot” by encouraging the building of more purpose designed housing for the growing number of older people: not “retirement ghettoes”, but vibrant communities with the sports, health and social facilities on hand that will enable residents to live fulfilling lives in safe, secure environments close to local transport and shops.
If there were greater provision and choice of such accommodation – supplied by private sector developers and housing associations – older people would choose to live there and hundreds of thousands of family homes would then be released into the system... in our cities, towns and villages.
What’s stopping this happening at the moment? According to one of the UK’s leading developers of retirement housing, it’s partly a lack of understanding by local planners.
“In some areas of the country we have found it very difficult to persuade planning authorities to give consent to the ‘change of use’ that purpose-built accommodation can require,” says David Reaves of Richmond Villages. “Yet our villages actually put shops, clubs and sports facilities back into local communities, and they create jobs.”
Tellingly, there was nothing in the Government’s new Green Paper on housing that would address the growing needs of older people, drawing criticism from Help the Aged.
Britain faces another crisis in the coming decades: how to provide a huge rise in “care in the community” resources as our population ages. Creating retirement complexes with dedicated support on hand would go a long way to meet this growing need – economically and effectively.
What is now required is for the various strands of Government – health, housing and community – at local and national level, to work together with the housing sector to find an imaginative way forward. We hope that this article will start that debate... beginning with your views.
email:editorial@maturetimes.co.uk