Foreword
“Housing plays a central part in people’s lives.
In Greater Manchester we have a vision for safe, decent and affordable housing – homes to fit the needs and aspirations of current and future citizens. Understanding the needs and aspirations of our older citizens and creating age-friendly homes in Greater Manchester is a central part of achieving that vision.
This framework document sets out our ambitions and the work that we will deliver with our Greater Manchester Ageing Hub partners over the next three years to achieve these long-term goals. This will benefit all of our places and will help our recovery from the pandemic, tackle housing inequality, and pave the way for a low-carbon economy.
These are ambitions for everyone, for all our futures.”
Paul Dennett,
Salford City Mayor, and Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) portfolio lead for Housing and Homelessness
Our vision for age-friendly homes in Greater Manchester
The housing choices across Greater Manchester for people in mid and later life are diverse; established neighbourhoods respond to different needs and aspirations, promote social connections and support equality, positive health, well-being and independence.
Where and how people live in later life depends on their individual needs, aspirations, taste, and financial circumstances. We know that the majority of people will want to live in their current home for as long as possible, but others will want to, or need to move. Some people as they age will need accommodation with access to specialist care and support.
Homes need to be accessible, adaptable and technology enabled. They need to be safe and warm and in established and thriving neighbourhoods, recognising the importance of attachment to place and social connections. Getting this right improves health and wellbeing outcomes and enables people to maintain independence and create positive futures. Good quality housing can: enable physical wellbeing; support positive mental health and reduce hospital admissions; it can delay or avoid unwanted moves to residential care or more specialist housing; in doing this it also has the potential to create enormous savings in public spending.
Our vision for age-friendly homes means we are working across all tenures and types of housing. It means we want to ensure that all new homes built in Greater Manchester are built to meet the needs of current and future generations. Our ambitions are reflected in the Housing Made for Everyone (HoME) Coalition, and GMCA has set an ambition to apply category 2 requirements to all new homes as standard.
As the vast majority of our homes are already built, we have supported the work of the independent Good Home Inquiry and we are focused on how to upgrade, maintain and adapt our existing homes, linking to Greater Manchester’s carbon retrofit of homes programme as we all work to tackle the climate emergency.
Where people choose to move, we need to develop much better provision of information and choices. Some people will want to consider alternative models of housing such as community-led housing initiatives, self-build or co-housing and new models of sheltered and retirement living. Our vision seeks to ensure that the options become more diverse, delivering the choices that the emerging market demands.