Oral evidence - Built Environment

Members present

Baroness O’Cathain (Chairman)

Baroness Andrews

Lord Clement-Jones

Lord Freeman

Lord Inglewood

Earl of Lytton

Baroness Rawlings

Baroness Young of Old Scone

________________________

Examination of Witnesses

Ms Sue Adams OBE, Chief Executive, Care & Repair England and Mr Paul Gamble, Chief Executive, Habinteg

Q234 The Chairman: Good morning. Welcome to this evidence session of the Select Committee on the National Policy for the Built Environment. You have in front of you a list of the interests that have been declared by members of the Committee. A transcript of the meeting will be taken and published on the Committee website. You will have the opportunity to make corrections to that transcript, where necessary.

Could I begin by asking each of you to briefly introduce yourselves to the Committee, please?

Sue Adams: My name is Sue Adams. I am the chief executive of the charity Care & Repair England, and I chair the Housing and Ageing Alliance.

Paul Gamble: I am Paul Gamble. I am chief executive of Habinteg Housing Association, which, in the context of today’s meeting, has been the steward and developer of the Lifetime Homes standard and the wheelchair housing design guide.

Q235 The Chairman: Thank you very much. We are looking forward to a very interesting session. We are keen to have good evidence on ageing, disability and housing because this has been fairly seminal to the whole outlook that we hope to improve with our report, when we produce it in March. We are very glad to have you here.

The first question is, what are the main built environment challenges faced by the ageing population, and how well co-ordinated is the response to these challenges at the national level? Also, what are your ideas on what is likely to happen in the next 30 years—not year by year, but where are we likely to end up?

Sue Adams: The built environment roughly divides into the external built environment and the personal—the housing built environment. We have seen strides made in the commercial and public environments through the Disability Discrimination Act, which was not an Act with improvements specifically directed at an ageing population, but because older people are more likely to have mobility problems, reduced vision, reduced hearing—sadly, all the things that tend to come with age—the external built environment improvements have been very beneficial to that ageing population. What we have not seen are any major improvements to the personal housing stock. Currently, we have a housing stock where only 4% of the housing contains the four basic accessibility criteria.

The Chairman: What was the percentage?

Sue Adams: Four per cent.

The Chairman: I did not know whether it was 4% or 44%.

Sue Adams: Sadly not. Very often, we think ageing is a minority issue when it comes to the built environment, but a third of all households are already occupied by a head of household who is over 65, and that is going to grow. To actually create a built environment for ageing is a majority issue; it is not a small minority issue.

The other big issue around the challenges is that it is not just about having the right number of boxes for people with particular disabilities and physical limitations; it is about creating spaces that are visitable, where people can be included. It is about having a built environment where you can go and stay with your daughter when you are not very well, visit your friends and help to look after each other. The really big challenge for an ageing population is to create spaces where people remain less isolated, can still be socially engaged and involved, and can look after themselves. As much as we might hope that we will be in the minority who stay incredibly fit and well until we are 90 or 100, we know from the data from the English Longitudinal Study on Ageing that around half of people have problems. It is different for men and women, and changes over time, but you already have around half of people who have problems with mobility and the activities of daily living. That has huge implications for the built environment. I very much agree with the Ready for Ageing report by Lord Filkin, which said that our society is woefully underprepared. It certainly strikes us that the built environment is woefully underprepared, particularly the housing environment. What you are doing is incredibly important because it gives an opportunity to say, “We want to create a world which is a healthy place to age”.

Without going on too long, and taking up too much time, a key connection around the built environment and ageing is, sadly, as we age we are more likely to have health problems and long-term health conditions. There is a very solid evidence base on the connection between the commonest long-term health conditions of later life and the quality of the built environment, particularly the housing environment. The headline figure people always pick out is the cost of falls to the NHS, and the clear connection there. You can actually identify the cost of falls and the risks in people’s homes: steps, stairs, baths, bathrooms. It goes beyond that: COPD, respiratory complaints, heart attack, stroke. So there is a direct cost to the public purse, through the health service, of having a built environment that is not suitable for ageing. That is a really big issue.

The Chairman: I am sure it is. I know countless examples of that where I live. You are concentrating on housing, and the built environment is not just housing. I am also very aware of elderly people who are fearful of going outside their own door because of hazards such as roads and pavements. They seem to think that they will trip on something. Is enough attention paid to that aspect of the built environment? It is part of the infrastructure, but the infrastructure is really the built environment.

Sue Adams: I totally agree. I thought I would start with the home and the built environment. I started by saying there had been improvements to level access and transport systems through the disability legislation, but it still needs to go beyond that so that we create lifetime neighbourhoods. Care & Repair England works very closely with older people’s groups and forums around the country, because they are people who are experts by the experience of being old. We have some great pioneers, like the Elders Council of Newcastle, which has done age-friendly audits. We know the things that can be done to the built environment, and they are quite simple. It largely boils down to pavements, seats, lighting. Instead of seeing this as the information being there about what makes the wider built environment good for ageing—we have known that for more than a decade—it would be so welcome to see the impetus to actually implement those changes, which has been lacking.

The Chairman: Where do you think that impetus should be focused?

Sue Adams: Planning. We need national standards. I have not seen the exhortations that this would be a good thing to do result in any physical, concrete changes.

The Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. That has been most useful. Have you anything to add to that?

Paul Gamble: I think Sue has covered most of it. The key issue is that the existing housing stock is clearly not fit for purpose, and that is made worse by the replacement rates of housing. Kate Barker did a review some years ago which suggested that the replacement rate of English housing was 1,200 years, and that was when we were building 200,000 homes a year, which we are not at the moment. It is that long-scale issue that is the real problem.

The Chairman: We have seen that.

Paul Gamble: My organisation’s particular focus is disability. In functional terms, as Sue said, there is that crossover between disability and ageing. We know that the most common form of impairment caused by ageing is issues with mobility. We have quite good experience and clearly, there is a wide spectrum of housing need. For our particular customer group, which is predominantly wheelchair users, we did a research report with South Bank University which suggested there was a shortage of wheelchair-standard accommodation of around 78,000 in England, which is not a huge number.

The Chairman: It is not many. I would have thought it was more than that.

Paul Gamble: That is specifically in relation to wheelchair household need. The issue is that there is a whole spectrum of people with low mobility needs. We provide some homes specifically developed for the needs of wheelchair users when we know they are going to live there, but we also have this inclusive design standard, Lifetime Homes, which is the standard we would like to see generally incorporated within the standards of general needs housing. It focuses on those key elements of homes that need to change with the advent of ageing or impairment.

The big ticket items—the most expensive items—are ensuring that the doors are of a certain width, that there is level access to the property, and the ability to fit a ground-floor shower. We know from experience that those are the most common forms of adaptations required if we are talking about an occupant or visitor to the dwelling. That is our focus in suggesting that that is the move that we are finding in housing standards, not just in the UK but across the developing world. Obviously, most western countries are dealing with this demographic challenge of the ageing population.

In design terms, for us, the high-water point was the approach we took to the Olympics, not just the Paralympics, but the design of the services on that site. For me, in relation to housing, but also the wider built environment, it is about encouraging that sense of inclusive design. If we went to an airport now, we would think it very strange if there were steps anywhere. Equally, with commercial retail properties, the ability to assist consumers means not finding steps everywhere—that people find the property easily accessible, be they a wheelchair user, a parent with a buggy, or a wheeled suitcase user.

For some reason, in housing, because it is seen as the private rather than the public realm, seeking to provide those basic standards we expect to see in a private dwelling is seen as some gigantic step.

Q236 Baroness Andrews: I should declare an interest. It is probably well-known to both of our witnesses, with whom I worked closely when I was a Minister. We developed the policy for housing and ageing, which came out in the publication on Lifetime Homes and Lifetime Neighbourhoods, and proposed a set of national standards for the built environment. There is a question later on about planning, so I am going to leave the planning aspect.

I want to ask about policy. My first question is, do you think our understanding of the impact of ageing and the requirements on the built environment is any better than it was a decade ago, and is this in any sense reflected in policy? Secondly, you have been talking about policies for keeping people safe at home and, therefore, not being dependent on the health service and cutting costs—ageing in place—and about the shortage of suitable accommodation which older people can move into from inappropriate housing, thereby freeing up the housing supply chain as a whole. Do you think these things have to go together? Are they anywhere in policy these days, either at a local or national level? Thirdly, do you have any sense that the demographic issues are effectively beginning to inform policy successfully in the UK at a local level or inside DCLG?

Sue Adams: There are a few questions there. Is it any better than a decade ago? I have to say, sadly, I think things have gone backwards. The shift in the housing world and housing policy field has been totally on the shortage of housing, the problem of accessing and buying your first home. We are seeing a very segmented approach to housing, which does not look at housing and homes and think about it across the life course. It says we have this here and now problem—which is much more of a finance problem, it has to be said—of how people buy a home when they are a younger person. Given the average age of purchase is 38, “younger” is the word I would use. Sadly, we have gone backwards from an idea that homes are potentially for your lifetime—that we are building homes that have to last a long time and, therefore, how do we second-guess what the shape of society is going to be in another few hundred years’ time? We are not taking the long view at all about the built environment, which is the strongest argument for a government vision and government policy about shaping the built environment. It is not quite the same as buying an iPhone that you can swap for a better model, and the market will sort it out. What we build has a massive influence on the whole shape of our society, be it the education of children, educational attainment or the health of the population. Sadly, I think we have rather gone backwards in relation to any ageing focus within DCLG at the current time.

The current debate about building numbers of homes, starter homes, seems to ignore the fact that people might age in those homes. Even if you can grasp that first rung of the ladder, we might find a lot of people cannot ever get beyond that first rung and there is a strong possibility they will have children and will age in those starter homes. That vision about the long term does seem to have gone.

On living safely and well in the current housing stock, versus moving to specialist and supported housing—

Baroness Andrews: Moving to suitable accommodation, which is not supported accommodation but just the right sized home.

Sue Adams: As I said at the beginning, the housing stock is the stock we have and quite a lot of it was built when life expectancy was around 48, in 1900. That puts it in context: the way that society and ageing and households and people have changed enormously, but the stock does not shift with that. We have 7 million older households—living in a third of the housing stock. As I said before, only 4% of that stock has basic accessibility standards and of that 4% a high proportion will be social housing, whereas 76% of our older population lives in the owner-occupied sector, simply because of the way that regulations and the code for sustainable homes was applied. We do have a shortage of good quality, age-friendly general needs housing stock; not just of specialist housing for older people.

The Chairman: Can I ask one question that is burning away in my head? Does any other country handle it better than we do?

Sue Adams: Paul will probably have a better international perspective.

The Chairman: The demographics, particularly in Europe, are more or less the same.

Sue Adams: On building standards and the quality of the built environment, I would have to point to the Scandinavian countries.

The Chairman: And the Netherlands?

Sue Adams: Yes, the Netherlands, Finland, Austria, Switzerland.

The Chairman: Why is there no read across? Why do we not learn from them?

Sue Adams: I would like to know. I think it is the perspective of the role of the state in shaping the built environment. We have World Health Organization age-friendly environments knowledge from 2006.

Paul Gamble: There is a structural issue in relation to housing. Most of these standards are controlled by building codes. In most of Europe they are often regional building codes. There is a more political element to it in England, if you like, because building standards are applied nationally. That tends to mean they become more politically fought over. One of the interesting aspects is that we have regional planning devolution in London, and it is London that has adopted the highest standards, in terms of adopting the Lifetime Homes standard since 2004. It is interesting that, internationally, that is seen as an example of good practice in changing the design of buildings to make them more inclusive. London is quoted internationally as the standard, whilst we do the usual wandering around a number of other countries looking for other examples.

In Australia, New Zealand and the US there has been far more emphasis on trying to adopt voluntary codes, with limited success, especially in Australia and New Zealand. In America, it is dominated by the Americans with Disabilities Act—the American forerunner to our Disability Discrimination Act—which sets standards for housing developments above a certain scale.

Sue Adams: On the built environment, we need a continuum; every single unit of housing we build in an ageing population is a very precious resource, so we need to set some bottom-line standards. There is certainly a role for specialist housing, and housing which is built for older people with support needs, because that is currently half a million—probably 700,000 households. There is some scope for growth there from around 5%. Maybe it could double but it depends on affordability.

Last but not least, you asked whether demographic issues are informing policy. They are certainly informing policy in the Department of Health. I do not see the join-up across with DCLG anymore.

Q237 Lord Inglewood: I think I understand what you are telling us, and what each of you told us in the evidence you submitted, but can I be clear. I am seeking a “yes” or “no” answer. Is what you are seeking a mandatory set of requirements dealing with the problems of ageing and disability to stipulate the way in which all new housing from here on is built? Is that right?

Sue Adams: We think there needs to be a bottom line of building regulations to set a basic line below which you cannot fall around accessibility standards to make homes flexible across the life course.

Lord Inglewood: Any sort of dwelling?

Sue Adams: Any sort of dwelling, yes.

Lord Inglewood: To try to get the context, have you any idea what the economic implications of that would be in adding to the cost of houses built, in the simplest terms?

Paul Gamble: There is some debate, obviously. The study that DCLG did suggests in relation to Lifetime Homes there is an additional cost of £500 per unit on average.

Lord Inglewood: The lifetime cost?

Paul Gamble: Lifetime Homes. The cost of introducing this new standard, based around what was the Lifetime Homes standard, is £500 per dwelling, roughly.

Lord Inglewood: That is £500 upfront on the capital cost, the purchase price?

Paul Gamble: I would challenge that. There is an obvious place to do the comparison. That standard has been in place in London since 2004, and we would argue that it has not been seen to slow the rate of development in London.

Lord Inglewood: You are saying something should be compulsory across the piece and you estimate that it will probably cost £500 for each house?

Sue Adams: We do not estimate. DCLG did their assessment on the application of Lifetime Homes standards, and they have been applied in London for more than a decade.

Lord Inglewood: The figure that emerged, to achieve what you want to see universally, was £500 per unit, full stop?

Sue Adams: If you applied it to a pattern book across the whole country, you could argue that you could reduce costs eventually.

Lord Inglewood: I am trying to get a sense of the financial implications of what you are telling us you would like to see.

Paul Gamble: It is a matter of controversy as to how precise the figure is. From memory, DCLG’s figure was £547, which was the cost difference between producing what we called the Lifetime Homes standard and the existing standard, which was Part M of the Building Regulations. We would say that cost is likely to reduce over time.

Lord Inglewood: Whether it is £400, £500 or £600 I do not think matters very much in the context of this debate.

The Chairman: It would not matter if it was £5,000, £6,000 or £7,000.

Earl of Lytton: Following on from Lord Inglewood’s point, the construction cost of housing where I live, down in Sussex, is about £150 per square foot, so a £500 increment per unit, I would have to say, does not seem to register in the correct order of magnitude as I see it.

We have housing of all different sorts, ranging from young people’s bedsits all the way up to millionaires’ penthouses, and everything you can think of in between. Some of it is built in what I might call topographically challenging locations, like the area of West Country where I was brought up; others are much easier to deal with. I am interested in the age versus disability issue. I am 65 and you would say, “He would say that, wouldn’t he?”. Age does not equal disability, necessarily. Given the range of topography, different demands, different profiles all the way through the strata of society—ranging from people who are young, fit, healthy, agile, to those who are older, or older plus a disability, or older plus a disability plus requiring care—how do you unpick all of this in providing a policy that makes sense in the built environment?

Paul Gamble: Let us say that at one end of the spectrum, you have someone who is a full-time wheelchair user, perhaps a full-time wheelchair user with a requirement for a carer. That has certain design considerations, but it is at the far end of the spectrum. We think about it as a functional triangle, with non-disabled people, fully mobile and then a range of different experiences. As you say, that is not necessarily linked to disability; it can be due to functional requirements of having children, having buggies and prams—those kinds of issues.

The Lifetime Homes standard is about trying to design and build homes that are as accessible and adaptable as possible, concentrating on the high-ticket items. They are not about a space standard. The standards are about focusing on areas such as the very expensive items of converting homes, such as increasing the door widths. If they are designed in at the start as the standard, which varies but is about 850mm, and we can get that standard built into the way home builders design their homes, that has virtually no cost because that is changing the specification. That is why we are quite confident about the savings. It is not about the need to have additional space. Of course, there will be sites which are steeply sloping, that require designers to think about things more carefully.

One of the reasons for trying to introduce this concept as an anticipatory standard or duty is the issue that was raised earlier. I disagree with Sue—I think the arguments about demographics have changed from 10 years ago, in the way that some of the climate change arguments have. I very rarely have to make the argument that society is ageing and that has a significant impact on the way the environment is changing. The problem is, it often appears as an introductory sentence and is not carried through in the detailed policy. We need planners and developers to think about disabled and older people as part of the customer base and society, rather than thinking of them as a special needs group.

The real problem with the construction industry, and even the housing association sector, is we tend to think about older and disabled people as separate, as a special needs group, not part of the wider community. Once you start thinking of them as mainstream, even on a steeply sloping site, you can design buildings which are very accessible by arranging multiple access points in the same way as you would arrange for car access. You do not think about level access in terms of car access, but that is effectively what you are talking about. You are talking about easy entry points to buildings.

I would agree with you that it does have an impact on the design. It changes some of the vernacular house types we use. For instance, there is a particular house type with an integral garage, often with a very narrow frontage. That is not a house type that we think is particularly useful, but it has been quite popular because it is a way of developers meeting planning requirements for car parking, for instance. Planning has impacts on the type and design of housing you get. We are trying to ensure that ageing disability impacts in the same way as car parking policy does.

Baroness Young of Old Scone: I was going to improperly ask Lord Lytton a question, and that was whether he ever had a mother.

The Chairman: I bet he had a mother.

Q238 Baroness Young of Old Scone: I was very taken by your point about visitability and the fact that older people in households are excluded from family events, often, because they cannot access housing with their children.

I have two questions. What have we learnt from the London experience of applying the Lifetime Homes standards, and are there any changes you would like to see? Particularly, is the Government’s requirement that anything above the national baseline can be challenged on viability causing problems, and what can we do about it?

Paul Gamble: The positive side from the London experience is that it had a significant impact on the Government developing its own standards, rather than effectively borrowing standards that, for instance, my organisation wrote. The new building standards include something very similar to Lifetime Homes called—rather awkwardly—M4(2), which is the second category of Part M of the Building Regulations, and Category 3 of Part M of the Building Regulations, specifically for wheelchairs. It suggests that Government is supportive of having that range of higher standards. We are particularly concerned that the inadvertent implications of these standards may reduce the number of accessible homes being built, rather than increase it. That is because of the viability, as you have mentioned.

Government have looked at viability standards in constructing the review of the new standards purely in terms of the financial viability of the housebuilding industry: effectively, what is the impact on the first sale price of that property? What they have specifically excluded from financial viability is any wider societal or health benefit for an individual or local authority or health authority. What we consider to be the benefits of this approach—having planning that incorporates thinking through the requirements of these revised standards—is removed from the viability. What looks like the viability assessment that local authorities will have to adopt will be one where, effectively, the housebuilder is able to say, “This is what we can build. If you expect us to introduce these voluntary standards, then, potentially, our development will be financially unviable for us and therefore you cannot have those standards”. How that precisely is going to work is being tested at the moment. At the moment, viability is purely the housebuilders testing their own financial viability. We think that is a huge opportunity lost.

Sue Adams: It takes out all the cost/benefit analysis of the social gain over the lifetime of a Lifetime Homes standards property. All the work that was done by DCLG, which could quantify the gain over the first decade—about £60,000 social gain—is completely taken out. Viability is purely in terms of the profitability to the developer; it does not look at the life course of the property and the social benefit. I do not see any other part of the country being able to apply those standards as the current assessment is shaped, and we might lose London.

Baroness Young of Old Scone: Why is it working in London at the moment?

Sue Adams: Principle.

Paul Gamble: Because it is an explicit part of the policy. One of the key issues is that it was adopted in London as a universal standard, so all homes which required strategic planning consent from the GLA were required to be designed to Lifetime Homes standards. That meant developers did not gain benefit from trying to reduce the number. It equally meant that developers knew they were under no competitive disadvantage compared to another developer; those standards were applied across the board. The industry accepted that was the price for developing in London, and it became incorporated into their standard designs. Critically, an independent developer could not get a competitive advantage by trying to game the system or reduce the standards.

Viability testing works by potentially creating an environment where developers will game the system. It will mean that they potentially can gain financial competitive advantage by reducing the number of accessible homes built, by arguing that they should develop 30% rather than 40%. From the kind of test cases we have seen, in reality, developers are talking about 5%, rather than 10%.

Baroness Andrews: Do you think it is going to change in London?

Paul Gamble: The London Plan is subject to examination in public. That has just been held and we are waiting for the examiner to come back. The Housebuilders’ Federation made very strong representations that the new standard, the new Category 2 of Part M, should not be a universal standard.

Baroness Young of Old Scone: If the developers outside London were saying, “I’m sorry, I can’t get this site to stack up and, therefore, I won’t build on it at the level of accessible homes you would like to see”, what is the solution to that? Is there a solution? Do you think it is generally gaming?

Paul Gamble: The practical example of that has been the operation in London since 2004. Since 2004, it has not been one long boom; there has been quite a major property slump, even in London, after the financial crash in 2008. The fact that developers have taken that on board demonstrates—I am not trying to present the developers as bad guys. But if they have a financial advantage in gaming a system, clearly, they will do. The problem is, we are creating that.

In London, developers were convinced that was the direction of travel in policy terms. They thought, “Lifetime Homes is being introduced in London; it’s only a matter of time before it will be introduced elsewhere in the country, so we might as well just get on with it. That’s the price of us developing in London”. They were starting to incorporate it into their supply chain, so their supply chain was being geared up for the standard width of doors, for example.

The real concern we have is that developers may now have an interest in trying to reduce those standards, thinking that there is a chink in the armour and that perhaps we are not moving inexorably towards those higher access standards. It is that external change that we are particularly worried about. From our perspective, that movement was really positive. When the new standards came in, DCLG estimated how many Lifetime Homes were produced—last year, when the standards were being discussed—and they said that 31% of all English housing was built to Lifetime Homes standards, and took the view that it would increase to 45% if the Government did nothing on changing standards by 2025. That was very encouraging. Unfortunately, now, the game has changed because the new standards and individual viability testing has been introduced.

The Chairman: Are you suggesting that it would have been better to stay with the original one and not introduce this new standard?

Paul Gamble: We welcome the fact there is a national standard. The Government have introduced the standard, so there is a presumption that they think the standard is a good thing. What we have always said is that, providing it leads to an increase in accessible housing, that is fine; the question is holding Government to account and gaining the figures. We know what was being produced and we obviously want to see that increase. Our fear is that that 31% figure is likely to fall very considerably. One of the things we will do, along with organisations like Sue’s, is to try and ensure that information is a standard part of what DCLG produces.

Lord Inglewood: When you were talking about planning developers, I think you referred to strategically identifying sites that required planning permission, or some such. Does that mean that the standards do not apply for the odd conversion? What about a warehouse conversion into flats?

The Chairman: A church?

Lord Inglewood: What about the other possible ways of creating dwellings? Do these standards apply in London?

Paul Gamble: Conversions are exempt.

Lord Inglewood: That is quite important, is it not?

Paul Gamble: When the policy was adopted, in London the GLA only had planning authority for significant strategic sites.

Lord Inglewood: My point is, if you build the odd infill house here, there and everywhere, they do not apply.

Paul Gamble: For a brand new infill house, the standard Building Regulations would apply. That would not necessarily mean the GLA had planning authority for a single dwelling; it is the larger sites.

Lord Inglewood: That is what I wanted to establish. Thank you.

Sue Adams: What is interesting is that it is different in Spain. Spain is the first country I have heard of that is now applying accessibility standards to renovation and conversion, largely because they have an oversupply of housing, so it almost became academic to have accessibility standards. The really important part became the improvement and conversion of the existing stock, such as blocks of flats that were being renovated. They have introduced accessibility standards and are doing great work on the training of designers and architects, so it becomes part of their thinking as opposed to an add-on.

We keep coming back to the ageing issue being somewhere that you never want to go, especially if you are a young architect and designer, but it is about bringing it in at the very early stages. We have very much focused on Lifetime Homes standards, and that is important, but there is a bigger issue about housing for ageing and inclusive places that goes above and beyond Lifetime Homes standards. It is very disappointing that only a few smaller builders have tended to be slightly more imaginative in thinking about small developments that are age-friendly and are not just of Lifetime Homes standards, but even better.

Baroness Andrews: They are among the most popular with builders?

Sue Adams: It is difficult for them to get land, of course, because of the land banking issue. They are small beacons. Those pioneers need to be encouraged. We have new opportunities, like Ebbsfleet—I think you are hearing evidence about that later—what a fantastic opportunity to create healthy places for the life course.

Q239 Baroness Andrews: This takes us slightly wider than housing. I heard what you said, Sue, that ageing is somewhere you never want to go. I presume that is because it is so unwelcoming at the moment in the built environment. You have also referred to the lack of joining up, particularly between health and housing. To what extent do those statements apply to the non-housing elements of the built environment: town centres, highways and roads, public realm, and so on? Can you describe for the Committee what a Lifetime Neighbourhood would look like? We cannot go and see one now, but is there somewhere we could go to see one in this country or elsewhere?

Sue Adams: There are two questions there. Where could you go and see one? I am stumped on that. I cannot think of a place where I could say, “Go and have a look” and they have done it all. Manchester has led the way on the age-friendly cities network group, but we are still not seeing it applied to the physical built environment in Manchester. Elizabeth Burton has fantastic materials on assessing the physical external environment for being age-friendly, but we have not seen huge steps taken anywhere in this country towards a neighbourhood implementing those changes.

Baroness Andrews: What about the first part of my question, about housing and health not joining up? Are any of the other aspects of the built environment joined up?

Sue Adams: I do not like to keep sounding so negative. On the connection between what is being built and the shaping of neighbourhoods, I am not seeing health and wellbeing boards, for example, taking on a lead role in planning. I think that could be a role for the future. So far, the health and wellbeing boards have largely been concerned with how you use the better care fund and the pressing here-and-now issues around integration of health and care services—very focused around services. In relation to future recommendations for a widening of that role, the area that we have put a lot of effort into is working with Public Health England and trying to reach directors of public health to say, “You have a fantastic opportunity here”. Now that public health is back in local government, they could be a very positive force for shaping planning for health and ageing in the future. I do not see anyone being there yet.

Paul Gamble: Delft, in the Netherlands, is quite commonly used as an example that has done a lot in neighbourhood planning. Equally, the Legacy Olympic Village is a good place to start, and the development of the new park and sports facilities. If you want an example of integrated transport, shopping, developed to inclusive standards—there is an interesting tale of how those standards came about and what they were in the Olympic Park—that is being used internationally as an example of inclusive design.

For me, the benchmark of a Lifetime Neighbourhood is just a neighbourhood that is well cared for. We are talking about no potholes, and pavements and crossovers that work for all. We are talking about well-kept communal areas where bushes do not knock you over or force you out into the road. We are really just talking about a good neighbourhood.

Baroness Andrews: Good for everybody?

Sue Adams: Good for everybody, yes.

Paul Gamble: Part of the problem is that how we are able to illustrate inclusive design principles is often by a lack of things. For instance, when we promote accessible homes, it is very difficult to take a picture of an accessible door and show that it looks like anything other than a door, or a window that you can open whilst sitting down. These are not things that feature in architecture journals.

Lord Inglewood: Is your point that one of the problems is an inadequate system in general for the proper maintenance of the public realm?

Paul Gamble: Yes.

Lord Inglewood: Does that go back to money?

Paul Gamble: In part, but the initial design as well. With new developments such as crossovers, it is about the ability to move from the pavement across the road and up to the pavement—it is about getting that detailing right. My focus is wheelchair users, but for anyone in the street who is slightly infirm, has a temporary injury or is pushing a buggy, that requires good design to start with and then maintaining it. It is about thinking through not just what is a good quality neighbourhood, but the functional importance of allowing people to enjoy and access that environment. That is the kind of issue that stops older people venturing out—when they think they have a six-inch kerb to get over, that there are roadworks, that there is an overhanging tree that blocks their path. It is about good neighbourhood management, but there is a real inclusive design aspect to it as well.

Sue Adams: The people who have done the most thinking and are trying their hardest to get this implemented are the Newcastle groups. They have worked with the local planners and are trying to make Jesmond an age-friendly place.

Baroness Andrews: Is this the Newcastle Elders Council?

Sue Adams: Yes. The Elders Council has worked with the local school of architecture on planning. It comes back to trying to normalise this, as opposed to seeing it as an add-on. That is the key. It is setting this as a vision that is good for everybody. It is about the way you look at a lot of local housing strategies. They will have a general housing strategy and then say, “Oh yes, we’ve got an ageing population so we’ll review our sheltered housing scheme”. That is 5% of their elder population. It is about setting that vision.

I did not think of the Olympic Village because, interestingly, it has evolved into a very popular place for young people. In some ways, it is very disability-friendly and inclusive, but it does also shout at you, “This is a good place for young people”, because these fully accessible, well-designed buildings have been marketed at the young, fit and well.

Q240 Lord Freeman: I have a very specific question. How might the Community Infrastructure Levy or Section 106 provisions be reformed to encourage a more adequate supply of suitable housing for older people, or those with restricted mobility?

Sue Adams: Do you want to start on that one, as a developer?

Paul Gamble: It is limited because the prospects for Section 106 agreements are diminishing anyway. Our concern is that they become part of the negotiation. Our concern is that issues to do with access and inclusive design are tradeable features that can be offset, for instance, by the percentage of supply of affordable housing or a grant to a local school, or a transport project. Our real concern is trying to make the standards non-negotiable. These are things we feel should be at the forefront of developers’ and designers’ minds from the outset of the project. It is something they should be expected to incorporate. To answer your question, we are nervous about the idea that it is seen as an add-on that could be negotiated out.

Sue Adams: We understand that the retirement housing sector, the builders of specialist housing sectors, put a very strong argument that their footprint is larger because they have communal and shared spaces and corridors, and want that to be taken into account, so that there is not a perverse disincentive to build that sort of housing because of CIL. That is a slightly different argument from tradeability.

The Chairman: That is a very useful point. There is one more question, but I am wondering whether you could write to us with the answer? The question is, are there further measures, such as financial incentives or initiatives, and changes to the national planning policy, which might help to encourage greater provision of suitable housing? If you could, we would be very grateful. I think I am a bad Chairman, but we always seem to end up not getting that answer. It is such an interesting and broad subject, of course. Thank you very much indeed; it has been very illuminating and very useful.

Paul Gamble: Thank you.

Sue Adams: Thank you very much for inviting us.