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Ageing population risks more older renters being evicted, London deputy mayor says
London’s ageing population risks more older renters being evicted and becoming homeless, the capital’s deputy mayor for housing has said.
Tom Copley added that he was reviewing the ways City Hall could support the development of more specialist housing for older people.
Speaking at the ARCO (Associated Retirement Community Operators) Housing with Care expo at City Hall in east London, Mr Copley said: “More and more people are set to be renting into old age in London. The private rented sector is insecure, meaning there is a risk of more older Londoners being evicted.”
While Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has “welcomed the long-delayed Renters (Reform) Bill”, Mr Copley said “it doesn’t go far enough in our view in addressing the insecurity and unaffordability in the private sector”.
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Highlighting research by the Centre for London, a think-tank, he said: “By 2030, there are projected to be over 1.4 million people aged over 65 living in London, 400,000 aged over 80 and 80,000 aged over 90.”
Research by the Centre for London commissioned by ARCO found that, between 2011 and 2021, London experienced an 8% increase in residents aged over 75.
There are currently 500,000 Londoners aged over 75, or 1 in 20: a lower proportion than England as a whole, although this varies highly between inner and outer London boroughs.
Josh Cottell, head of research at the Centre for London, noted that Londoners faced a shorter “healthy life expectancy” than the average across England, while high housing costs mean older people who live alone in the capital have a lower income after paying for housing than the English average.
Since 2013, the Greater London Authority (GLA) has administered the capital’s share of central government’s Care and Support Specialised Housing Fund to develop and refurbish homes for older and disabled people. London was allocated £48.5m from the fund for 2022-23.
Mr Copley told attendees that housing delivery “across the board has been increasingly challenging recently, and that’s even more the case for specialist and supported housing”.
He said City Hall had been reviewing the ways in which “both the mayor and the government can support the delivery of more specialist and supported housing”.
He recently wrote to Felicity Buchan, the housing and homelessness minister, with “a number of recommendations for the government to consider” coming out of the GLA review.
The GLA will “shortly” be publishing a specialist and supported housing vision document, he added. It will also consider recommendations from retirement housing developers as it develops the next London Plan.
Earlier this month, the current London Plan was the subject of a review by central government. It concluded that housebuilding in the capital was on a “downward trend” and that London had fallen short of its housing targets by 60,000 homes. However, it said there had been “a welcome increase” in affordable housing completions over the past four years.
In April 2023, central government launched an older people’s housing task force, led by Professor Julienne Meyer of City, University of London. The task force is set to report this summer on recommendations to grow the senior-living sector.
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