Top 5 Wishes for 2025 | No.3 HAPPI Homes: Building all Homes Age-Friendly

The Older People’s Housing Taskforce report, Our Future Homes: Housing that promotes wellbeing and community for an ageing population, makes over 80 recommendations, clustered around 10 core themes, to create the conditions for boosting the supply of all housing for an ageing population.

The design of our housing and ensuring that all new homes are age-friendly is a central focus of the Taskforce’s report. It highlights the HAPPI principles as the benchmark for creating accessible, age-inclusive housing - not only for specialist housing but for mainstream housing as well. With the release of the Ipsos/Housing LIN insight report, we now have the most up-to-date data on the housing preferences, wants, and aspirations of older people, including the need for accessible and adaptable homes.

In alignment with the government’s goal to build 1.5 million well-designed new homes over the next five years, we urge the government to make Parts M4(2) and M4(3) of the Building Regulations mandatory and ensure that the HAPPI age-friendly design principles are incorporated into the upcoming Building Design Codes.