Too Little, Too Late? Housing for An Ageing Population

This report by the CASS Business School and Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation was commissioned by ARCO and advocates a holistic policy agenda including a national plan and a key role for local authorities and health and care services.

It highlights how high-quality retirement housing has a crucial role to play in tackling the urgent housing, health and social care challenges facing an ageing population.

The report calls for action from the public and private sectors, including:

• National and local housing programmes should include specific targets for dwellings designed to cater for older people
• Planning permission must be easier to obtain
• The demand is there as baby boomers seek to redeploy housing equity into smaller, more convenient homes with access to services
• Proposes greater collaboration – between local authorities and
• Closer attention to policies that incentivise downsizing and ways to make moving easier for older people.

Reviewing the new report for the launch, the Housing LIN’s Jeremy Porteus stated:

“We urgently need to raise roof for later life housing. This very timely report demonstrates the ‘care ready’ value of retirement housing for downsizers and makes the economic case for creating the right conditions to ‘upsize’ the housing market for last time movers.“