Vision 2020: Setting out a 2020 Vision

As we reach the end of another year, and indeed a decade, we are hard at work planning our annual conference. The theme for our next annual conference will be Vision 2020, and it’s exactly that: our vision for housing with care and specialist housing for 2020 and beyond.

With a selection of excellent speakers, the conference will be all about being smarter:

• Smarter Leadership
• Smarter Living
• Smarter Design
• Smarter Adaptations
• Smarter Aspirations
• Smarter Ideas

Regular readers of our weekly bulletin will know that we are currently running a Housing LIN survey asking providers about the future of housing for older people in the UK. One of the clearest themes is the need for more housing, and more diverse housing models, for a section of the population which is growing appreciably and will continue to do so.

As we reach the end of another year, we are hard at work planning our annual conference, the theme of which will be Vision 2020: our vision for housing with care and specialist housing for 2020 and beyondWe need to provide a clear vision for the future of housing: what types of housing are needed, the numbers of homes which we need, and the range of offers we can make to older people. We need a clear vision in order to press for the policies that we need to deliver these changes.

But it is not just about the numbers of homes for our ageing population which we need to build. We are a founding member of a new coalition for accessible housing, Homes Made for Everyone (HoME). It is therefore also how we design for a greater quality and better accessibility from the outset and assess the viability of retrofitting existing stock for future adaptability. We don’t just need to build more, we need to build better.

We need to consider the environmental impact of building new housing. Construction is one of the biggest contributors to carbon emissions in this country, and we need to consider the carbon footprint of not just the construction, but the entire lifetime of housing. This includes addressing meeting energy efficiency requirements and tackling fuel poverty to reduce health inequalities.

We also need to think about how to harness our technological revolution in order to create smarter homes that are adaptive to the needs of those who live there. We see TECH (technology enabled care and housing) becoming the norm. The government’s Council’s recently launched Home of 2030 (opens new window) innovation challenge seeks to address some of these questions, and the Housing LIN is proud to be a member of the advisory board.

And finally, we need to work with the people who will live in the homes of the future. We need to explore ideas of co-design and co-production, and look at successful examples of intergenerational living, in order to ensure that everyone has a say in where they live, and can feel that they are a valued part of an inclusive society. We have called this ‘CollobarAGE’ (opens new window) and our 2020 conference will feature a selection of examples of collaborative approaches to housing and care.

We look forward to announcing details of our conference early next year so you can register to find out more about our Vision 2020 and also have an opportunity to share your ideas on the day.

To ensure that the announcement of our annual conference lands in your inbox, register to receive our weekly bulletin, HLINks, and to receive notifications of our upcoming events.