Tasked with addressing Older People’s Housing: 2 years on from the first Taskforce meeting

Today marks the second anniversary of the launch of the Older People’s Housing Taskforce and also the six-month milestone since the publication of its report.

I was deeply honoured to have been invited by the then government to sit on the independent Taskforce, on 26 May 2023, to join my fellow members (chaired by Professor Julienne Meyer), for the inaugural meeting at Grace House in St John’s Wood, London. We were also joined by the then junior ministers at the Department of Local Government and Communities and Department of Health and Social Care Ministers, Rachael McClean MP and Helen Whateley MP - who had jointly commissioned the Taskforce.

Visiting this award-winning, high-rise retirement community near Lord’s Cricket Ground brought back many memories. As a teenager, I regularly took the No.13 bus with school friends on weekends to watch limited-overs matches at the 'home of cricket.' Then, in the late 1990s, I visited the building again while working for RNIB. I had been appointed to carry out an access audit of the previous development, Dora House, to assess its accessibility for blind and partially sighted people. Back then, it was a high-rise residential care home managed by Central & Cecil (C&C) Housing Trust. More than 30 years on, I was bowled over by the new, contemporary HAPPI-inspired scheme, now operated by Aster Group following a merger with C&C.

Designed by Ryder Architecture, Grace House offers 170 new, self-contained one- and two-bedroom apartments on 13 floors. Winner of the 2023 Inside Housing Development Award for Best Affordable Housing Development (£20m+), the building is mixed tenure, with 17 of the dwellings (10%) let at a market rent and the remaining 153 (90%), at an affordable social rent. Key features of the scheme are captured in this Housing LIN Inspirational Achievement. 

From a Taskforce perspective, Grace House is a landmark, purpose-built housing development for over 55s and stands for what the year-long Taskforce was tasked to investigate. It passed the test. It was one of many developments for an ageing population visited by Taskforce members to see at firsthand and talk with residents about “the enablers to increased supply and improving the housing options for older people in later life, and to explore ways to unblock any challenges”.

Drawing on these visits and systematic evidence gathering, Taskforce members addressed a number of policy areas across housing, planning, health and adult social care, making over 100 recommendations that can:

• boost the supply of specialist ‘care-ready’ housing for older people
• improve the quality of designing HAPPI inclusive, age-friendly homes and communities,
• create the market conditions and investor confidence in housing for older people
• support local areas better understand need and how best to plan to new specialist accommodation
• ensure that older people have access to independent advice and information to make informed choices
• respond to the impact of environmental changes, modern methods of construction and ‘digi-ready’ and TAPPI-influenced technology advances
• enable more integrated approaches to place making, including delivering better health and wellbeing outcomes
• help facilitate innovation, product development and research to build the evidence base for new housing and care provision, from cohousing to coproduction
• strengthen sector leadership to respond to an increasingly ageing population

I was proud to contribute these and the resultant Taskforce report, Our Future Homes: Housing that promotes wellbeing and community for an ageing population. It was submitted the morning that the General Election was called and, as a result, the new government had to formally respond to it. This the new Minister of State, Matthew Pennycook MP, did in a Parliamentary Statement on 26 November 2024, exactly 18 months on from the commencement of the Taskforce.

Now, on the second anniversary the Taskforce's launch, while we await the delivery of next month’s Spending Review followed by further details about the Labour Government’s Housing Strategy, including its commitment to build 1.5million new homes over 5 years, Taskforce members continue to press for match-winning policy levers to stimulate affordable and private sector developments for older people. For example, from proposals that can unlock additional capital for investing in affordable homes to reintroducing accessible housing standards in building regulations, and from introducing age-friendly planning guidance to retrofitting our existing communities and creating new, healthy towns and places. 

However, in conclusion, I see this not just about generating a new supply of much needed specialist homes for people in later life - such as sheltered housing, extra care housing or integrated retirement communities – as highlighted in the housing preferences of older people report with Ipsos funded by Innovate UK, it is also about the wider housing market waking up to the fact that it has to better understand the housing preferences of older people. With an ageing population, this is now mainstream business and there is all to play for.

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We are delighted that drawing on the Taskforce recommendations, the Vivensa Foundation (formerly the Dunhill Medical Trust) have announced a strategic partnership with the Housing LIN to create practical tools and resources that support sector improvement and provide funding for testbed locations in the UK to action their plans and ideas over the next 5 years. We look forward to sharing more about the programme in the coming months.

Professor Julienne Meyer – the Older People’s Housing Taskforce Chair - was the keynote speaker at the Housing LIN’s Festival of Ideas on 6 March 2025. More about our annual conference in Leeds can be found here.