At a national level, the serious financial challenge is to provide adequately for the greater volume of pensions which will be required. This is being tackled both by legislation which, from 2012, will automatically enrol employees into a national pension scheme with support from their employers, and by gently raising the state pension age to 67 by the mid 2040s.

But the task of creating those extra jobs cannot be plucked out of thin air by Acts of Parliament. Employers in Yorkshire and elsewhere will need to be thinking seriously about age-friendly workplaces and planning for a workforce which will include a higher proportion of older workers. Too many employers still take a rather negative view about training and supporting older employees, and that will have to change. Organising packages of work which permit part-time employment will have a new importance.

Promoting the independence and well-being of older people outside the workplace will require a range of significant actions at a local level, starting with housing provision. By and large, our housing stock was built by young people for young people, and we must ensure that new-build and refurbishment programmes give us much more "age-proofed" accommodation. The Lifetime Homes Standard, which is not mandatory, describes the sort of features which would enable older people to function more independently and successfully in their own homes – and most are not rocket science.

These include wide access doors (for wheelchairs – and baby buggies), adequate banisters and grab rails (particularly in bathrooms), minimising internal steps and stairs and providing for stair lifts or even through-floor lifts as possible adaptations, walk-in showers and large-button power switches.

They might include parking spaces for electric scooters, lighting sensors which follow a person's movement around the house, and enough cabling (available at waist level) to support the smart home technologies which are already in the market. Planners, builders and architects must focus more closely on design which takes account of potential frailties and disabilities.

If active ageing is our leitmotif, people also need to be able to function in a community, not just within their own homes. The building blocks here are things like public transport, public seating and
toilets, safe and attractive open spaces, decent pavements and
street lighting and access to sporting and leisure facilities.

An economically successful local community is vital too – one which can support flourishing convenience stores, postal services, pubs and hairdressers for example.

Town halls have a major role to help shape vibrant local communities which will provide for an ageing society, and the provisions in last year's Local Government Act point in that direction. Unfortunately, the funding settlement for local government, providing for only a one per cent increase in real terms in each year from 2008-2011, will make this a particularly hard challenge.

Health and social services clearly need to be sharper, not just to provide for the sick, but to help prevent people becoming dependent. Social care, not just in Yorkshire, has become an ambulance service for the most ill and the most poor, with virtually no provision to support the person who only needs a little bit of help to carry on living independently. There will be more telecare and telemedicine to drive that forward, and older people will need help to use these new technologies, but we also need to be honest and recognise that we have been under-funding our care services badly for decades.

A measure of future care needs can be drawn from looking at dementia, which affects more than one in five people over 85, but our over 85 population will have grown by 57 per cent in 2022, and by 123 per cent in 2031. A recent report from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee showed how poorly we are providing dementia services. Family carers, who already provide the backbone of care, will need more support and access to respite care for their relatives – particularly since those carers will also be expected to carry on working.

Adjusting to an ageing society will not be cheap, but it need not be cripplingly expensive. We need to stop thinking of ageing as an illness which needs to be managed, but as a condition in which people will flourish given the right environment and support.

The key is to provide, in the round, for fit and active ageing. If you ask older people what they want, most will give the answer that far from being a burden, older people want to have the opportunity to play a real part in society. What they need, is the environment and support to be able to do this.


Mervyn Kohler is special adviser to Help the Aged.