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Full Life Toolkit: Supporting your later living development

We have developed a new toolkit called ‘Full Life’ to support proposals for later living schemes.

Devised by planning and economics specialists in our later living team, the toolkit represents a comprehensive and evidence-based approach to promoting the socio-economic case for later living schemes.

Watch the video or read on to find out more:

Nationally it is well established that we have an ageing population, with that reflected in the vast majority of local authority areas. However the planning policy context and political support for later living schemes varies substantially from authority to authority.  

Full Life is designed to fully convey the wide range of interlinking benefits generated by specialist housing for older people, for these individuals, the public purse, the NHS, the wider economy and the housing market. These benefits, communicated effectively, can and should attract considerable weight in the decision-making process, maximising the chances of a positive outcome.

In developing Full Life, we have drawn upon our extensive experience of evidencing the economic and social impact of retirement living developments, and demonstrating their positive role in addressing unmet housing need following a detailed review of supply.

In support of your scheme Full Life can:

1. Evidence a need for specialist accommodation, complying with national guidance and accounting for the changing demographics of local authorities and the specific characteristics of people living nearby.
2. Prove a deficient supply to demonstrate that a specific need is unmet. We thoroughly interrogate existing and proposed allocations, permissions, applications, SHLAA documents and brownfield registers to understand the potential scale of supply relative to need.
3. Demonstrate health benefits for prospective residents, and benefits to the NHS as a result. We collate available evidence on how specialist accommodation can reduce loneliness, prevent lengthy hospital stays and lower the risk of falling, for example.
4. Quantify local economic impacts relating to jobs - both during and following completion – resident expenditure, business rates and Council Tax payments. This is based on a configuration of our economic benefits model, which is designed to fully adhere to best practice.
5. Illustrate related effects on the wider housing market, showing the potential to release much-needed family homes currently occupied by older people in the local area, for example.

The toolkit is designed to be completely flexible in order to respond to the circumstances of individual schemes, focusing on specific benefits as necessary or providing an integrated assessment of the full range of benefits to make the strongest possible case for development.

The Full Life Toolkit can be co-ordinated using inputs from our Planning and Economics teams, working alongside co-consultants if required.

Download the flyer to find out more.

Please contact David Murray-Cox or Andrew Lowe for more information.

27 January 2021