Spatial planning: The missing lever for a multi-generational housing market

Later living housing is regarded as critical – so why is it given so little attention? Martin Miller makes the case for more robust policies to support housing for people in later life

It’s been a year since the Older People’s Housing Taskforce published Our Future Homes , its landmark independent report – backed by two government-funded research projects but frustratingly published too late to influence the December 2024 National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

Its message was clear: if the UK is serious about tackling the housing crisis, it must ensure more housing for people in later life and strengthen national and local planning policies required to deliver it.

A year on, the need for reform remains. National planning policy was not bolstered following the Government’s publication of the 2024 NPPF, and local planning authorities have therefore yet to receive the policy clarity required to translate good intentions into meaningful action.

But what is the state of play since the report and how can the sector inject greater urgency into a policy area that by 2038 will be critical to 57 per cent more of us when compared to 2018?

A part of the housing crisis puzzle

Many planning authorities don’t understand the concept of ‘housing with care’ or recognise the societal benefits which integrated retirement communities can provide. In short, they provide ‘right size’ accommodation, can help keep people healthier for longer and provide social infrastructure to reduce isolation and demand on public health services.

The benefits of purpose-built retirement communities for the wider housing market also remain painfully under-appreciated. According to a report by Homes for Later Living, surplus bedrooms are expected to reach more than 20 million in the UK by 2040, with older households contributing 60 per cent of these

It also shows, if all over-65s that wished to could move, one million homes would be directly released for sale, and two million bedrooms would become available. Each new later living home has been shown to free up at least one, often two, family homes, and these developments are able to be brought forward without adding pressure on local school places – often a concern for other types of residential proposals.

A strategic commitment to later living is therefore not a niche policy for an ageing population; it is a mainstream housing policy that will help get Britain building and the market moving again.

Whilst planning authorities and the general public seem to be fixated on the delivery of affordable housing, later living is the only type of housing which national planning practice guidance regards as critical – and this has been the case for the last six years.

A policy vacuum

It has been three years since Professor Les Mayhew called for the government to build 50,000 new homes for older people each year to tackle the UK’s housing and social care crisis. But despite a recognition of the critical need for older persons’ housing, national planning policy only requires local planning authorities to establish the need, size, type and tenure of housing for different groups in the community, and to reflect this in local planning policies.

There is no requirement for development plans to provide a specific quantum of housing for older people or to allocate sites for such accommodation. Consequently, it is no surprise that very few local plans do. This often leaves proponents of well-designed, sustainable and socially beneficial schemes preparing speculative planning applications on unallocated sites and arguing their planning merits in a policy vacuum. This can be a slow, uncertain and costly pathway to securing a planning permission and it will undoubtedly deter many from trying.

Without a truly supportive strategic planning framework, the sector cannot scale, no matter how strong the demographic or policy case may be.

Why spatial planning must step up for later living

If the UK wants to unlock housing for all generations, later living must take its place alongside affordable housing, urban regeneration and infrastructure delivery priorities with clear support from local planning authorities through local plan allocations. And the system needs to recognise that the release of family homes onto the market will be a direct strategic benefit of later-living development.

This argument has long been championed by Lord Best – co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups for Housing and Care for Older People, as well as New Towns – a champion for improved later living development, who argued that 10 per cent of new homes should be allocated by local planning authoroties for later living.

What needs to be done?

One year on from the taskforce report, the message is unchanged, but the stakes are higher: without strengthened planning policy for later living accommodation, the UK is unlikely to solve its housing crisis.

Developers within the retirement sector could do more by promoting land through the development plan process, something which the industry doesn’t tend to do, but which the housebuilding sector does frequently. Local planning authorities can do more by recognising the wider benefits of later living homes and allocating more land for retirement communities in their local plans. And the government can do more by strengthening national policy to require more later living homes to be delivered.

Further amendments to national planning policy are due to be published in the coming weeks, but will the sector get an early Christmas present?