THE two big local players in retirement housing have said many more homes need to be built for the over-65s in a bid to ease the housing crisis.

McCarthy & Stone and Churchill Retirement Living, both based locally, have weighed in on the government’s view that at least 250,000 new homes are needed each year to keep pace with demand.

The government’s white paper has put forward a package of proposals which include forcing councils to produce up-to-date plans of housing demand, as well as expecting developers to avoid “low density” development where land is in short supply.

Spencer McCarthy, chairman and CEO at Ringwood-based Churchill Retirement Living, said: “We were very disappointed not to see the white paper include a proposal to remove stamp duty for downsizers, which was widely talked about beforehand, and would create a real incentive to stimulate that end of the market.

“For all the talk and all the promises, the government needs to take more action to help the eight million over-60s who are interested in downsizing. That’s a huge potential supply of under-occupied family homes that could be benefitting the younger generation all over the UK.

“With the budget on March 8 there is still a great opportunity to implement this change. Stamp duty is a matter for the chancellor, Philip Hammond, and he can deliver this change for downsizers next month.”

Britain’s biggest retirement builder, Bournemouth-based McCarthy & Stone – founded by Spencer McCarthy’s father John – has also called for more support for the industry.

CEO Clive Fenton told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We would certainly like to see much more support and much more thinking about how the needs of the elderly housing market are catered for in the country.

“The government’s been very focused over the last few years on first time buyers. What we’re seeing with the demographics at the moment is that 74 per cent of all household growth is going to be in the over-65 market and this is really an area that needs to be given a lot more consideration.

“If you think about the demographics, there’s something approaching 12million people over the age of 65 in this country and that’s going to be going to over 17m through the next 20 years.

“We’ve identified that something like a third of the people who are over 65 are either thinking about downsizing now or would consider downsizing in the future – something approaching four million people in total – and yet there’s only been 141,000 specialised retirement properties ever built for sale in this country,” he added.