New homes must be fit for elderly

The government will legislate to make all new housing meet the Lifetime Homes standard designed to make homes fit for older and disabled people, it has announced.

The government will give developers until 2013 to voluntarily meet the standard, and will then legislate if “take-up in the private sector has not matched market need or expectations.”

The Lifetime Homes standard will be wound in to the Code for Sustainable Homes, and all social housing will meet the standard by 2011. The changes are contained in the National Strategy for Housing in an Ageing Society, published this morning by the Communities Department. It says that just under half (48%) of the demand for new housing before 2026 will come from older people.

The Lifetime Homes standard requires buildings to be designed for use by people confined to a wheelchair with larger turning spaces in halls and stairwells, among other measures.

Housing association lobby group the National Housing Federation called the strategy a “step in the right direction” but criticised the lack of a firm date for private housing to meet the standard.

The Home Builders Federation said the universal application of the Lifetime Homes standard would be a “a disproportionate and insufficiently targeted response” to an ageing society.