Are the elderly being ignored in the government's housing strategy?

The government's announcement this week of its housing strategy aimed at tackling the housing shortage, boosting the economy, creating jobs and giving people the opportunity to get on the housing ladder has been widely welcomed as a boost to the whole housebuilding industry.

New plans include mortgages of up to 95% of the value of new homes with government underwriting part of the risk as well as a £400m public fund to help new home developers unlock mothballed residential property schemes.

The government also plans to offer discounts for social tenants wanting to own their properties under the ‘right to buy' scheme, provide more public sector land for residential property developments and make available up to £150m to help bring empty homes back into use.

But Peter Girling, chairman of Girlings Retirement Rentals, argues that these measures are targeted at young people and families and seem to ignore the needs of older people at the other end of the housing market.

He said: "Many elderly people no longer desire homeownership. They want to downsize. However, there is currently an acute shortage of appropriate retirement housing in the UK to buy or rent so why are no provisions being made for these people?

"This shortage of homes for older people has led to another problem. Eight million people currently live in under-occupied homes and many are older people. What's more, this number has increased by 45% since 2003 because people are living longer and there aren't enough suitable alternative properties available."

Mr Girling wants to see a greater number of retirement properties built and more government incentives to encourage people to move into them, to make more family homes available.

He added: "Before the government embarks on its huge and costly building campaign - I would urge some common sense and joined up thinking. This should start with a review of the number of empty and under-occupied properties and a strategy of providing quality retirement homes - only then will we get the market moving again."

However, Spencer McCarthy, chairman and group managing director of Churchill Retirement Living, awarded gold at last week's What House? Awards, appears to disagree with Girling's comments.

He believes that the government's announcement of its housing strategy is a welcome boost to the whole housebuilding industry, and "particularly for those of us providing sheltered accommodation for the elderly".

He continued: "For this end of the [retirement] market, the strategy is aimed at supporting the elderly to live independently, and it includes a deal to improve the quality and choice of housing available for older people, which aims to help them to stay independent for longer."

The strategy claims that almost a third of all homes are occupied by the elderly, and nearly two thirds of the projected increase in the number of households over the next 20 years will be headed by someone aged 65 or over.

Consequently, McCarthy argues that "a package of measures will help the elderly adapt their homes, or move into alternative housing, to meet their changing needs."

He added: "Our research shows that the average owner of one of our purpose built retirement apartments is a 79 year old widow, moved there from their own two or three bedroom semi-detached ‘second hand' property, where they had been living alone on average for 35 years. Therefore any help the government can give to this demographic, which is growing daily, in order to get these homes released back into the open market will be a big boost to the economy in general.

"It is these kind of family homes which are most in need for the first time buyer. This new government policy would help to reintroduce under occupied homes back on to the market."