Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether the Government has made an assessment of the potential merits of incorporating criteria on age-friendly environments and infrastructure into planning regulations.

The National Planning Policy Framework contains explicit requirements for councils in designing the built environment, including buildings and their surrounding spaces, to ensure that they can be accessed and used by everyone and to create a high quality built environment, with accessible local services that reflect the community’s needs and support its health, social and cultural well-being.

To address the needs of our ageing population we have introduced two new access standards into the Building Regulations as ‘Optional Requirements’ – these broadly reflect the Lifetime Home Standard (accessible and adaptable housing, particularly suited to older people’s needs) and for the first time a national wheelchair housing standard. These are available for local authorities to require through their local planning policies, and we remain of the view that requirements based on local need is the best way to ensure older and disabled people have the right choice of housing in their local area.