The Housing Corporation announced the appointment of Michéle Low as Head of its new Centre for Research and Market Intelligence (CRMI). She is currently a Policy Manager with the Corporation and advises on lettings and homelessness. The Corporation also launched a recruitment campaign for eight new research and statistical posts at the centre, which will open later this year in Cambridge.
The new centre of excellence aims to maximise the Housing Corporation's research and analysis potential to transform how knowledge is used and managed. The Centre will bring together all the Housing Corporation's existing statistical capacity, expertise and innovation and good practice schemes - including the new Gold Award for Excellence - as well as both existing and new partnerships with external global experts.
CRMI will also create new ways of drawing in the research community - including universities, think tanks, government, and commercial centres - to tap into its data and research and use this to improve housing policy thinking.
According to new research, retirement villages - a relatively new development in the UK - are proving popular with older people as places to live.
Attracted by having your own front door in homes especially designed for later life, and with on-site care and support available day and night, older people have more opportunities to make friends and to lead an active life.
The research carried out by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation also found evidence that retirement villages were good news for local communities, by helping health and social care providers to deliver health and community services more efficiently.
In addition, on-site care and support in retirement villages can lead to fewer hospital admissions and promote earlier discharge, generating cost savings for acute hospital trusts. Moreover, as older people move into homes specially developed for them, significant numbers of family homes, previously under-occupied, can become available to ease housing shortages.
Retirement villages can also stimulate local economies by creating jobs and through residents' support of local shops and facilities.
The study, by Karen Croucher, Research Fellow at the Centre for Housing Policy, University of York, also looked at how retirement villages can be made affordable to older people with different levels of income.
Some schemes were addressing the issue of affordability by offering properties that could be rented, part-owned, or bought outright.
Research has found evidence of older people willing to forgo home-ownership, not only to release equity to fund their care needs, but also to free themselves from the responsibilities of owning a property.
As yet, there are only a few retirement villages in the UK - examples being Hartrigg Oaks in York, Westbury Fields in Bristol, and Ryfields in Warrington.
They usually have more than 100 dwellings, allowing certain economies of scale, and provide amenities such as cafés, fitness suites, and craft rooms. Older people living in the wider community can often access these amenities too.
Karen Croucher said: "The study shows that retirement villages have great potential to expand the choices of living arrangements for older people as well as having benefits not just confined to those who live there.
"But perhaps the strongest messages are from the residents of retirement villages themselves as studies consistently show high levels of satisfaction with the combination of independence, security, support, and companionship that the schemes offer."
Making the Case for Retirement Villages, by Karen Croucher, is published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and is available from York Publishing Services Ltd. (01904 430033), price £11.95 plus £2.00 p&p.
Releases during April in the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) Findings series included:
Findings can be accessed on the Foundation's website at www.jrf.org.uk.
