Planning authorities should be more responsive to local and personal circumstances to help older people who are ‘trapped’ in their current homes, according to a new report.
Research commissioned by the Centre for Ageing Better found that one in five people aged 55 and above were actively seeking to move but could not find suitable properties.
At least two million people aged over 55 live in homes that fail the minimum Decent Homes Standard, the charity said.
The Centre for Ageing Better said it aimed to challenge the ‘flawed orthodoxy’ that incentives to downsize and retirement villages are the only housing solutions for older people.
The charity’s CEO, Dr Carole Easton, said: ‘Instead, we need planning and housing to focus more on older people’s needs and deliver the right properties in the right locations and at the right price to give older people greater options than are available now to where and how they live.
‘The challenge for policy makers and planners is how to identify the specific barriers and opportunities that particular people face when attempting to rightsize as they grow older.
‘Planning interventions and housing strategies need to be built upon a better understanding of these needs and wants, gained through direct engagement and coupled with localised data, if we are to end this house-moving bottleneck currently experienced by older people.’
