Resource Library

This set of materials from the Design Council provides step-by-step guidance to help Local Authorities create and implement design codes that reflect local character and foster community engagement while supporting government priorities like home building and economic growth.

Digital exclusion can have a severe impact on people’s lives, particularly with a trend since Covid-19 of increased use of digital technology to deliver services. This report from Audit Scotland looks at how well the public sector in Scotland are tackling digital exclusion and what more they can do.

This summary of research by Manchester Metropolitan University finds that a secure, permanent home, access to transport links and green spaces, and support to maintain relationships with family and community are essential to support people with a learning disability and commissioners when planning ahead for older age.

This briefing from the Town and Country Planning Association sets out the high-level preconditions necessary to create a healthy new town and reflects on some of the key lessons that need to inform future thinking, outlining the kind of vision for healthy places that will be vital to securing high-quality outcomes in new towns.

This Churchill Fellowship blog from Savannah Fishel outlines aims, and invites collaboration, ahead of her opportunity to visit housing innovations abroad which put intergenerational connectedness at the centre of their design.

This report from the Centre for Social Justice, in collaboration with Randal Charitable Foundation, shows that nearly 6 out of 10 of all adults feel lonely at least some of the time. Though finding that older people are the least lonely age cohort in the UK, where loneliness does exist, or in order to prevent it, they identify housing and digital exclusion as 2 of 6 challenges for government and policy makers, and make a series of recommendations.

Published in The Gerontologist, this paper presents a new theoretical model which elaborates on the potential impacts of ageism on digital engagement and participation in later life and explains how ageism may pose a threat to realising the potential of digital technology to promote successful ageing.

This paper by Clarissa Giebel at the University of Liverpool introduces a Dementia Inequalities Model. Drawing on the pioneering Dahlgren & Whitehead Rainbow model of health determinants, it takes a look at the evidence of the inequalities experienced by people with dementia and their carers, and categorises them in three layers: individual, social and community networks, and society and infrastructure.

This Canadian toolkit, published by Happy Cities and Hey Neighbour Collective, presents design opportunities to nurture social wellbeing in housing for people of all ages, backgrounds, abilities, household sizes, and incomes.

Whether looking to access income for home improvements, to make a major purchase or to help out with finances, this Age UK guide outlines equity release and suggests useful organisations that can be contacted for further advice to help consider all the options available.