The COO of leading developer of build-to-rent housing for pensioners – Birchgrove – says the new Government is missing out by not focusing on making better use of the country’s empty bedrooms.

Marcus Hodges, COO, Birchgrove

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s planning announcement and the recent Royal Speech made it clear that the new Government is as serious about housing as promised – welcome news for everyone in the housebuilding business.

The party’s plans to reform the planning system suggest that it at least intends to deliver on its promise of 1.5 million new homes this term. Whether it can deliver on that promise, or on the “biggest increase in social and affordable housing for a generation” promised in its manifesto, remains to be seen.

Lawyers are already warning that plans to create these new homes, partly by revising expropriation orders, could be challenged on human rights grounds.

However, I wonder whether the Government may not need to achieve such an ambitious target because, in fact, many of the bedrooms needed to accommodate the homeless already exist in our country, they are just empty.

There was no concrete reference in the manifesto, the King’s speech or the planning announcement to improving the provision of housing for older people or to making better use of the existing housing stock.

I understand the tendency to overlook senior living better than most. I’ve spent much of my career on the other end of the spectrum, working with providers of student housing and shared housing for younger people.

However, when the opportunity to work for Birchgrove arose, I began to look more closely at rental housing for older people and realised how crucial the older population is in solving the UK’s housing crisis.

Two-thirds of people over 65 have at least two spare bedrooms in their home that are empty, making this age group responsible for a large proportion of the nine million bedrooms that are empty every night across the country.

Admittedly, not all of them want to move out of their big houses to make room for the younger people whose housing problems are much more politically visible. And they shouldn’t be forced to do so. On the other hand, some of them want to move, but there is no place that is particularly attractive to them.

Buying a smaller property is not attractive for many because a large part of the equity released is spent on moving costs and property transfer tax, and many smaller properties are just as unsuitable for older people as their existing homes – they are simply smaller versions.

The other option is renting. However, neither the social nor the private rental sector is particularly suitable for senior housing. The former is increasingly impossible to obtain and the latter is too unsafe for older people.

That leaves rental properties specifically designed for seniors, but these are few and far between. To put this in context, we are the UK’s leading provider of rental properties for seniors and we only have three operational projects, although we have six more in the pipeline.

This certainly does not reflect the actual demand – two of our projects are now fully booked and there are even waiting lists.

The latest English housing survey shows that households headed by people aged over 65 make up 10% of the private rental sector.

While this is still a relatively small proportion, many are predicting a sharp rise in the number of older people renting in the future. A report by the Pensions Policy Institute last year found that the decline in home ownership rates among 45-64 year olds, combined with the decreasing supply of social housing, suggests that by 2041, 17% of pensioners will be renting privately.

It has been pointed out that this group “has not played a major role in recent political debate”. I agree with this sentiment, but the new government will miss out if it does not put these people firmly on the agenda.

Our data shows that for every resident who moves into one of our communities, a property with an average of 2.3 unoccupied rooms becomes available. If we could bring more people looking for a secure place to rent into one of these communities, we could free up a large number of rooms, eliminating the need for at least some of the housing that the government is planning but may not be able to build.