Understanding where older people are currently living and may be living in the future is useful for assessing the potential demand for retirement housing. However, it can be misleading to simply rely on population projections. They are based on recent trends in births, deaths and migration.
Therefore, they can be heavily dependent on recent economic growth and new housing supply. Areas that are able to offer both jobs and new homes will likely see higher migration and hence population growth than those that fail on one or both counts.
It is important to discern the trends underlying projections when identifying potential markets for development. Are there increasing proportions of older people due to young people leaving in search of employment elsewhere? Are overall numbers increasing because there has been a large amount of housebuilding? Or is growth lower than it could be because the local market is failing to accommodate older people and so they are moving elsewhere?
Figure 5 below highlights some of these trends. Traditional retirement markets such as Eastbourne and Christchurch are towards the top-right of the chart with high proportions of and net inflows of older people. Meanwhile, at the bottom-left of the chart are urban areas such as London and Manchester and some markets with low levels of housebuilding such as the Home Counties. These markets have a net outflow of older people along with lower overall proportions living there. However, it is worth noting that, despite having a much lower proportion of older people, Manchester (local authority) has double the number of people aged 65+ as Eastbourne.
Meanwhile, the markets with the highest projected growth in older people (dark red) are typically those that have seen lots of housebuilding such as Milton Keynes, Aylesbury Vale, and Swindon.
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