Integrated retirement communities are critical to the overall UK-wide housing plan but requires urgent reform in order to meet demand.
His article was written by Will Bax, chief executive of Retirement Villages Group, and first published in Inside Housing on 5 March 2024.
As a society, we’re living longer than ever before. This means more people deciding how they want to spend their later years. Inevitably, for most people, where they currently live may not be suitable as lifestyle and needs change.
As well as living in a more appropriate home, Retirement Villages Group’s (RVG) latest research has found that almost a third (31%) of over 65s want to move to better-connected areas in future, with almost five million baby boomers set to move back to towns and cities by 2033.
I see this trend as an opportunity, not least as our town centres re-imagine themselves in a post-coronavirus world. It’s time for a big conversation on how we build liveable urban neighbourhoods that cater to the needs and wants of all generations.
Unfortunately, without better solutions that motivate our elders to move, there is a locked layer in our housing stock that dampens market liquidity, pushes up prices and misses the opportunity. Given the rate that society is ageing, we must act now.
First, we need a top-down approach to later-living housing provision. I believe that the planning system needs urgent reform through top-down measures and delivery targets from central government that support the delivery of retirement housing and the needs of our ageing population. The current approach at a local level is inconsistent, with most local authorities having no plan to deal with their ageing community.
“We need action to turbo charge delivery of health, housing and social care strategies for older people”
We’re also encouraging the Older People’s Housing Taskforce to look at how we can better distinguish between general market residential, sheltered retirement housing and integrated retirement communities (IRCs) – the latter of which provide significantly more in terms of service offering and amenity. We need to ensure the delivery of integrated retirement communities or ‘housing with care’ schemes are supported in planning policy and able to compete on a level playing field with market residential developers seeking to maximise saleable space.
The cost involved in delivering comprehensive amenities, often 10% to 15% by area, should be factored into policy to ensure those that deliver the right solutions are not put at a disadvantage by the planning system, as they are today.
We’ve seen plenty of rhetoric in recent years, but the government’s track record of delivery in this area remains inadequate. We need action to turbo charge delivery of health, housing and social care strategies for older people.
Second, create better incentives for people and places to embrace age-appropriate housing. There is a need for concrete fiscal policy to support older people who want to ‘downsize’. It’s an easy win to motivate this emotionally charged decision and, in turn, free up family homes without being penalised by the tax system.
Last year, we launched the Thrive Living collection, a transformative model for the future of integrated retirement living that has been designed in consultation with many older people about what they want from later life. The benefits of delivering this new urban, connected, public-facing proposition span both community and the individual. For the community, our calculations show that this will add an extra £7.7bn a year into the local economy of our towns and cities. With flagship sites opening in Chester and West Byfleet and Tunbridge Wells, these communities are built in or near town centres, on sites crying out for regeneration.
For the individual, Thrive Living communities will create places of connection; knitted into their neighbourhoods. While the homes are beautiful and thoughtfully adapted, it’s the community and amenities including restaurants, retail, wellness and leisure facilities that enable more intentional living and act as the glue to bring people together. In turn, making a positive contribution to the local community and its economy. All these schemes will be raising the environmental bar too, by achieving operational, whole-life net-zero standards.
“It’s vital that we achieve transparency and conformity across industry fees and charges, so that customers can make informed decisions about their future”
Third, put customer care front and centre. RVG is calling on the taskforce and the wider housing industry to put customers’ interests front and centre. For me, this means moving away from the outdated leasehold model we are currently stuck with and evolving towards a customer contract that is easier to navigate within a comprehensive consumer protection framework. We want to see simpler, more accessible contracts that offer complete security, confidence in service delivery and mechanisms to protect value for residents.
Yet, ‘housing with care’ models are not defined or regulated in UK law, which means that consumer protection in this area is a patchwork of ill-fitting regulations. Given the inadequate product and practice of some large retirement housing developers, it’s inevitable that consumer confidence is down. So, RVG is calling on the taskforce to implement a new regulatory framework to support those doing good and address consumer confidence in the sector. For example, it’s vital that we achieve transparency and conformity across industry fees and charges, so that customers can make informed decisions about their future.
By pushing for these reforms now, the Older People’s Housing Taskforce, and the industry at large, can help prepare the sector for growth and the avalanche of demand that is charging towards us. As well as enable operators, like me, to deliver better-quality options for all of us.