Councillor, your care provision is in crisis… You must grasp the nettle!
We have an aging population. The UK had two baby booms in the mid-20th century, one after World War II and another in the 1960s. As of 2023 (the most recent figures available) there were approximately 13.57 million members of the Baby Boomer generation in the United Kingdom, ranging from the ages of 59 to 77.
This is the generation that is now becoming increasingly dependent on care and there is a significant shortage of available social care services, particularly for elderly people, leading to long waiting times for care home placements, delayed hospital discharges, and pressure on the NHS due to inadequate support for individuals needing post-hospital care at home.
One commissioning group recently disclosed that their shortfall has become so acute that they now have approximately 2,000 patients for every available bed in the system. This is beyond breaking point by some considerable way and action needs to be taken as a matter of the utmost urgency.
On 14 February, an inspector has allowed plans for 95 assisted living units and a 75-bed care home on green belt land after finding that the provision of 15 per cent affordable housing would satisfy the new national policy ‘golden rules’ for such plots and citing the local authority’s “exceptionally bad” housing land supply.
The golden rules do state that brownfield sites must come first and that is quite right. There are a number of historic buildings (such as old police stations, fire stations etc.) that can be brought back into use for this purpose and there are town centre sites that can be utilised for new facilities, and you should FULLY SUPPORT these plans. There is no question, these brownfield proposals are acceptable and frankly, the only question a Councillor should EVER ask about such a proposal is, “is the building big enough to help us meet our need”.
The reality though is that brownfield sites will never meet the immense need. We still need “normal” homes for younger people, and we need commercial sites where people can work and shop. Therefore, you can no longer shy away from being more pragmatic about the green belt. It is proved that care facilities meet the “Very Special Circumstances” test therefore, again, your only question really should be “is this facility big enough to help us meet our need?”
I urge every Councillor to not only meet with developers who want to help you provide the facilities you so desperately need; I would politely suggest that you should be pro-active and seek out developers who provide care and invite them to the area you represent. You should work with them to identify sites and establish new facilities so that we can look after those who looked after us for so long.
Until next week,
Henry