How brownfield passports can unlock more housing for older people

When executed with architecture that complements the existing built environment and attractive landscaping, schemes such as Churchill Living’s Sarum Lodge transformed 2.5 acres of a derelict former bus station into 47 apartments and communal areas specifically for people in later life.

The redevelopment replaced a vacant building and a large concrete slab with a thoughtfully designed, three-storey building that harmonised with neighbouring structures and introduced landscaped gardens that support biodiversity.

The sensitive redevelopment of this brownfield site provided much-needed specialist housing for older people, delivering a range of social and economic benefits. This included 47 new homes that enable older people to live safely and independently, potentially generating annual health and social care savings in excess of £200,000 each year.

Second-hand, family-sized homes were released back onto the local market as people downsized, helping others to move on and up the ladder.

Footfall on the high street increased, with the capacity to generate approximately £360,000 each year from older residents using shops and services on their doorstep.

“Churchill Living’s Sarum Lodge replaced a vacant building and a large concrete slab with a thoughtfully designed, three-storey building that harmonised with neighbouring structures and introduced landscaped gardens that support biodiversity”

Car dependency was reduced and active travel and public transport increased by co-locating people among shops, services and transport connections.

The regeneration of smaller, more awkward sites, which were previously home to commercial uses but are often too small and costly for mainstream house builders to take on, can help achieve these outcomes.

This would be part of meeting the government’s housebuilding targets while reducing the need for development on more contentious green belt sites. Using town-centre brownfield sites in this way provides older adults, who are particularly likely to benefit from living centrally, with the opportunity to live in high-quality, well-designed homes that meet their changing needs.

In addition, locating retirement communities in this way helps prevent isolation and promotes intergenerational engagement by encouraging regular interactions in shops, businesses and community spaces where people of all ages mingle.

By regenerating urban brownfield sites to make them safe and attractive downsizer destinations, we would be releasing larger suburban properties, often located near schools and parks, for growing families, and in turn unlocking opportunities for first-time buyers. The net result is a more dynamic housing market better equipped to respond to the needs of people at all stages of life.

This might go some way to explaining why independent polling indicates particularly strong local support for retirement housing, with over 50% approval compared with less than half for mainstream apartments.

Despite these advantages, developments like Sarum Lodge and many others throughout the country remain exceptionally challenging to deliver, with planning consent often determined at appeal, and costs that can make a scheme simply undeliverable despite the brilliance of the location.

“Locating retirement communities in this way helps prevent isolation and promotes intergenerational engagement by encouraging regular interactions in shops, businesses and community spaces where people of all ages mingle”

The proposed brownfield passport aims to address this by ensuring a balanced interpretation and application of local planning policies, thereby avoiding unnecessary costs and the prohibitive delays associated with ‘planning by appeal’.

To successfully implement the brownfield passport, three key measures are essential. First, a planning presumption in favour of specialist housing for older people on brownfield sites must be established. These sites often face planning objections due to existing commercial land-use designations, which drive an anti-residential bias. Few groups are better suited for smaller urban sites than downsizers, who no longer want a family-sized home and anticipate being less car-reliant.

Second, exemptions from affordable housing obligations and the Community Infrastructure Levy should be provided for specialist housing for older people. Retirement housing operators frequently lose valuable town-centre sites due to these financial burdens, because non-residential developers do not face similar obligations. This situation led to Churchill losing out on a town-centre site that would have been ideal for older people’s housing to a rival bidder that used the site as a self-storage facility.

Third, local planning authorities should be mandated to ensure adequate provision of town-centre brownfield sites for older people’s housing. Unlike other European countries, UK planning authorities rarely allocate suitable sites for this purpose. With the increase in housebuilding that this government rightly wants to see, we should take this opportunity to ensure at least some stock reflects the needs of our rapidly ageing population.

The government-appointed Older People’s Housing Taskforce recently highlighted the chronic undersupply of retirement housing in the UK. Despite updates to the National Planning Policy Guidance in 2019 and the acknowledgment of a “critical” need for this type of housing, supply continues to trail well behind demand.

The brownfield passport, in tandem with the government’s long-term housing strategy, could help deliver a housing mix that serves the needs of the UK’s ageing population.

By prioritising this sort of housing for older people in optimal brownfield locations, the passport can help people move on and up the housing ladder, enable older people to live more safely and independently in a home of their own, drive economic growth and improve environmental outcomes.

It represents a forward-thinking approach to addressing the housing crisis, aligning with the broader goals of growth, opportunity and sustainability.

Spencer J McCarthy, chief executive, Churchill Living