Government green paper on housing

Housing built around the care needs of an ageing population and the release of more NHS land for home-building are among the features of the green paper on housing published this month.

With older people expected to make up 48% of the new growth in households to 2024, the paper says, "houses need to be easily accessible and supported by the right infrastructure so that people have access to health, housing, transport and care services".

It notes that fresh planning guidance now requires regional spatial strategies and local development frameworks to consider demographic trends in terms of the housing requirements of older people. The Housing LIN, in partnership with the Royal Town Planning Institute, is working on a planning advisory note which will be launched at the institute's annual conference in October.

The paper, Homes for the future: more affordable, more sustainable (opens new window), continues: "Too many older people still live in housing that does not meet thermal and safety standards and is expensive to adapt. This further adds to the pressures on health, housing and care services."

In the green paper ministers repeat their pledge to promote Lifetime Homes Standards, particularly to the private sector, to ensure homes properly meet people's needs throughout their lives. The standards will be reinforced with the publication in the Autumn of the National Strategy for Housing in an Ageing Society.

The green paper seeks comments on how the adoption of the standards can be expanded.

Meanwhile, the paper confirms that the Department of Health will transfer 13 new sites of unused land for new and affordable homes. NHS trusts, the paper says, are also "identifying the surplus land they hold with potential for further new housing".

Both local and central government are going through a similar exercise, seeking to add space for an extra 40,000 homes to the surplus land for 160,000 new homes already identified.

Responses to the green paper have to be in by 15th October.

A Housing LIN briefing on the green paper is available here (opens new window).