Retirement living

Bristol’s vision for Retirement Living

Bristol's vision for Retirement Living is to:

• Provide a model of housing with care and support that will meet the needs and aspirations of older people across all tenures offering choice and flexibility in service delivery and accommodation type.
• Combine value for money with state of the art design and practicality, in locations that maximise benefits to individuals and our development partners.
• Enable the development of a quality, sustainable and personalised housing solution that enables older people to live in their own home for longer.
• Provide more than just housing in the form of an outward facing community resource that enables the development of wellbeing and community services across the wider neighbourhood.

Our vision is to see a range of flexible living options that can adapt to meet the needs of people as they grow older. Retirement Living has the potential to provide a viable alternative to residential care. It can improve older people's wellbeing by keeping them involved in local communities and to free up housing for larger households as people relocate  For many older people it is simply a lifestyle choice which helps keep their future options flexible.

Bristol already has 11 Extra Care Housing (ECH) schemes, which are between 50-60 flats in size. These are spread evenly across the city (a map can be found below). In total they provide just over 600 flats with on-site care and support. They offer a range of communal facilities and activities some of which are open to older people who live outside of the scheme. Access to the schemes is available for people who have eligible social care needs and the majority of flats are for social rent.

It is expected that the number of people wanting ECH will grow and that in 10 years the number of people supported will be 14-16% higher than it is today. We predict a short fall of 434 Retirement Living homes for people to buy and a further 200 affordable homes (for social rent).

There is a gap in the market for more flats for people to buy and for schemes that are large enough to incorporate a whole range of retirement living across a variety of tenures. We are keen to see the development of schemes that enhance the facilities available to older people and which are an asset to, and in harmony with, their local neighbourhood.

The launch event

We held a launch event on 27 February to inform developers and care providers. This was opened by George Ferguson, the Mayor of Bristol. Presentations were given by Nick Hooper, Service Director - Strategic Housing and Tim Southall, Housing Commissioning & Policy Manager. Clive Parker, Chief Executive of Extracare Solutions and PRP Architects shared a case study that outlines the potential for development on a Bristol City Council site (for illustrative purposes only - not a firm proposal). Presentations can be found on this page along with answers to questions raised by attendees at the event.