One of the absolute certainties of life is ageing, and is it not true that many of us leave it too late to understand the process until we are faced with it either personally or with a member of our family?
This country finds itself facing an exponential increase in the need for provision of age related accommodation, assisted living or end of life and palliative care, over the next 25 years the number of over 60’s is projected to increase by 7 million (Office of National Statistics 2015) This fact, alongside the fact that homeowners over 65 in England and Wales have £611 billion of equity locked in their property points to the fact that, with local government partnerships, there is a financial matrix here that could deliver new long term, community based later life and palliative care typologies . The old model of government care homes increasingly does not work – collaborations between the individual, developers and local authorities is a route worth exploring.
As the Housing & Community Agency has said – “Housing our ageing population in high quality homes within great places is central to delivering sustainable development through good design” - HAPPI – Housing our Aging Population
Why is it that we are we so impoverished in this field? Why are we and our politicians not addressing this tsunami of need for communities within the community rather than at one remove. In developing schemes we are obliged to provide affordable and key worker housing, why is there less emphasis on what can be commercially viable end of life provision? Indications are that we are lagging behind our Northern European counterparts.
Part of our work over the past 40 years has been in this sector, along fairly conventional retirement schemes throughout the UK – the experience has led us to think about new typologies for senior living within communities rather than isolated in gated communities (an example from the Netherlands - http://www.building.co.uk/care-homes-the-new-way-to-get-old/5050512.article) – much research is being conducted in this field with extensive research and development being conducted by amongst others - : Innovage Project, Casa Europe, Coral Europe.
As life unwinds, surely the optimum must be the opportunity to merely move through the varying elements of a community, from independent living, to retirement to palliative care, without sacrificing friendships, familiarity of place and memories………
