Crisis looms for retirement living
By Tony Watts - Editor - 10/09/2007
Major figures from the housing industry are warning that Britain is sleepwalking towards a housing crisis – unless the Government acts decisively to remove the planning barriers that are preventing the thousands of homes now needed for older people from being built.
Our August lead story “Build more homes for older people” has produced a huge response from readers – all agreeing that providing customized housing for older people would be a highly effective solution to the current homes shortage. Their vacating underused family bedroom homes would enable young families to move up the housing ladder.
But a major obstacle stands in the way. At present the country’s retirement housing sector is locked in battles with local authorities up and down the country, because councils’ overriding priority is to provide more “affordable housing” - not retirement accommodation. As a result, just 3,500 new units are being built for purchase each year – a fraction of the homes needed.
Thousands of people are being forced to stay in their current homes, which can become expensive to maintain and attract high council tax bills. Many more are having to purchase homes distant from their family and friends.
“With the fast ageing population there will soon be a tidal wave of older people looking for a choice of retirement properties and house builders will not be able to meet that demand,” warns Gary Day, Land and Planning Director of McCarthy and Stone, the UK’s biggest builder of retirement homes.
“The problem lies with planning. At present local authorities demand that when new retirement housing is built that a high percentage of the units are ‘affordable’ homes for younger people – but the two types of housing don’t mix. The alternative is for us to pay large sums of money to the council, which means we cannot afford to buy those sites where older people want to live – close to local facilities.”
“Development after development is being held up by planning,” agrees Tony Taylor, Managing Director of David Wilson Homes, “making it difficult and expensive to build retirement accommodation. Time after time we have to walk away from schemes because of the barriers being put in our way by councils.”
The Government is currently looking at the housing needs of older people as part of a wider ranging review; but Gary Day is one of many experts we have spoken to who fears that – unless the Government gets the message that a crisis is looming - the planning priorities of local authorities will continue to be skewed.
“Only a tiny percentage of UK’s local authorities have an ‘older people’s housing strategy’ at all,” says Gary Day, “and most of those who do make no reference to privately owned accommodation.”
If older people are not to be pushed to the back of the queue – once again - the Government and local authorities need to be made aware that this issue really does matter to older people – ideally before the new housing strategy now being overseen by Baroness Andrews is set in stone.