Later Living: NLA Expert Panel on Wellbeing

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PRP Architects

Later Living: NLA Expert Panel on Wellbeing

With the rapidly changing demographics across the UK, the fourth meeting of the wellbeing expert panel concentrated on later living and how it is being integrated into local urban areas.

Simon Hodson, Head of UK Healthcare and JLL, joined the panel providing some key statistics on the current status of the UK’s demographics, the later living market and an insight into the benefits and challenges of integrating later living into communities. Simon highlighted that our housing delivery model in the UK is very much focussed on getting people onto the property ladder and not helping people to descend from the property ladder to release equity and ‘rightsize’ in their later years.

The demographic shift over the next decade will see a dramatic increase in the number of people over 65 and in particular those with Dementia. The number of morbidities or comorbidities per person will therefore increase, resulting in a population which will become more dependent on our communities and infrastructure than ever before. Simon also reflected on the issue of loneliness, which has become a key issue over the past year with regards to people’s wellbeing. Those living in age restricted communities do, however, experience less social isolation, as well as slower stresses to aging and fewer risks to daily life.

From JLL’s research, the primary reasons for moving is to release equity or to move nearer to family. Simon thought that developers and investors need to unpack the opportunity to create aspirational housing for later living and policy makers and local authorities need to clearly identify and forecast the future need in order to target a percentage of their new housing to this demographic.

Panellist Jenny Buterchi shared some thoughts about how keeping mentally, physically and socially active in our later year’s aids wellbeing. Maintaining meaningful engagement with the world around is vital to people as they age and therefore placing this demographic at the heart of communities can reap multiple benefits.

Jenny Buterchi shared a case study of a project in West Byfleet which is seeking to regenerate the local centre by placing aspirational later living above a range of new retail, community and leisure facilities. The client’s commitment to wellbeing of their residents, staff and the wider community has been a key design driver and will be central to the ongoing management of the new development.

Jenny’s presentation demonstrated the how the design and interrelationship of the public, semi-public and private spaces promotes wellbeing and interaction across the generations. The development is designed around a public square, a ‘sticky street’ designed as a destination for the whole community. This is further complemented by a range of shared resident amenities with outdoor spaces designed to promote social activity and growing of sensory and edible plants, as well as tranquil shaded areas to sit.

Heath Harvey, the panel chair, led the discussion by querying the one size fits all approach and whether there should be more segmentation of the later living offer to create aspirational housing with greater choice for the demographic. Simon thought that the rise of intergenerational living across the housing market will complement the later living sector in time. Rory Olcayto from PTE referred to a project in Barnet where codesign played an important role in designing to meet aspirations of older people.

Amanda Whittington from Fielden Clegg Bradley Studios questioned how we can ensure these types of developments are available across tenures. The affordable sector has struggled in developing this type of housing since welfare reforms were brought in some years ago and mixing of tenures needs to be carefully considered.

Shaun Andrews from Nexus Planning highlighted that getting the location right is key and the high street has to be part of the solution for later living. However, the fragmented ownership of our town centres may prevent such sites coming forward and masterplanning of these could provide a cohesive strategy for local authorities.

The panel generally thought that London boroughs are not collating or analysing the necessary data to support the need and benefits of later living models, sometime confusing them with care homes. The panel agreed that there is a great opportunity to reframe the later living sector in the post-covid world and to create greater choice for our older generations.

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Jenny Buterchi

Partner
PRP Architects