Mark Bevan

Evidence for Policy Making: Some Reflections on the Application of Systematic Reviews to Housing Research

The recent turn towards evidence-based or evidence-informed policy making has generated interest in systematic literature review techniques. Systematic reviewing is increasingly being adopted to address questions in complex social policy areas, but the methodological development lags behind. Drawing on the experience of undertaking three systematic reviews of housing related topics, as part of a project designed to empirically test the transfer of systematic review methods to social policy and social care, this paper reflects on the use of the systematic review methods in housing research and considers how our experience accords with recent methodological development of reviewing in other areas. The paper first examines wider methodological developments occurring during the course of the three-year project, before considering changing review practices in housing studies. It then goes on to examine the key methodological challenges that remain unresolved, in particular: searching for literature, quality appraising studies, interpreting old research against shifting contextual factors, and providing an actual synthesis of diverse material. It calls for a more thoughtful approach to the method and more careful consideration of when systematic reviews may be appropriate.

Planning for an Ageing Population in Rural England: The Place of Housing Design

Abstract A key aspect of planning for the future housing supply in rural areas of England is the demographic context of an ageing society. Older people have a very diverse range of aspirations and needs in relation to their housing and wider sense of well-being. Planning is part of a wider policy response to facilitate a range of housing options for older people, including age-specific housing and in the mainstream housing stock. A key factor in responding to future aspirations and needs is the design of new housing. The government has signalled its intention to move towards the application of lifetime homes standards to all new housing in the future, firstly by encouraging take up of these design standards in the private sector, but with the option to review progress and the possible need for regulation in 2013. This very positive policy development would help to enable older people to exercise greater choice and control over their circumstances. However, a consideration of the prospects for increasing the supply of housing with higher design standards in small rural communities suggests a very slow pace of change in the housing stock. In addition, therefore, there needs to be a more immediate focus on other policies to address the challenges facing an ageing society in the countryside.

Retirement lifestyles in a niche housing market: park-home living in England

ABSTRACT Park homes are a small, niche sector of the United Kingdom housing market. This paper reports a study of 40 residents of park-homes that focused on their motivations for choosing this form of accommodation, and on their views about and experiences of park-home living. Whilst the sector has long provided a low-cost housing option for people of all ages, in recent years it has increasingly aligned itself as a lifestyle choice for older people. Despite their diverse reasons for moving to park homes, most respondents reported very positive experiences of park-home living and shared similar views about the benefits, but there were a few dissenting voices. Two conceptual frameworks are used to help understand the experiences of the respondents. ‘Elective belonging’ offers a way of contextualising the narratives that people articulate about their lifestyle choices and that affirm their sense of biographical continuity even having moved to new locations. This notion also helps frame some of the tensions that arise among the residents. The second framework, ‘biographical disruption’, is a way of framing the stories that the respondents told when their lives had not followed the anticipated trajectory and by which they coped and made sense of the circumstances which soured their chosen lifestyle.

Co-designing Urban Living Solutions to Improve Older People’s Mobility and Well-Being

Mobility is a key aspect of active ageing enabling participation and autonomy into later life. Remaining active brings multiple physical but also social benefits leading to higher levels of well-being. With globally increasing levels of urbanisation alongside demographic shifts meaning in many parts of the world this urban population will be older people, the challenge is how cities should evolve to enable so-called active ageing. This paper reports on a co-design study with 117 participants investigating the interaction of existing urban spaces and infrastructure on mobility and well-being for older residents (aged 55 + years) in three cities. A mixed method approach was trialled to identify locations beneficial to subjective well-being and participant-led solutions to urban mobility challenges. Spatial analysis was used to identify key underlying factors in locations and infrastructure that promoted or compromised mobility and well-being for participants. Co-designed solutions were assessed for acceptability or co-benefits amongst a wider cross-section of urban residents (n = 233) using online and face-to-face surveys in each conurbation. Our analysis identified three critical intersecting and interacting thematic problems for urban mobility amongst older people: The quality of physical infrastructure; issues around the delivery, governance and quality of urban systems and services; and the attitudes and behaviors of individuals that older people encounter. This identified complexity reinforces the need for policy responses that may not necessarily involve design or retrofit measures, but instead might challenge perceptions and behaviors of use and access to urban space. Our co-design results further highlight that solutions need to move beyond the generic and placeless, instead embedding specific locally relevant solutions in inherently geographical spaces, populations and processes to ensure they relate to the intricacies of place.

Meanings of Home for Moveable Habitats

The feelings and meanings that people have with regard to the spaces that they call home are suffused with complex ambiguities. This article seeks to draw out some of the distinctive characteristics of diverse moveable habitats that frame and contextualise how residents conceive of home. Moveable habitats include the diverse nomadic populations, and also people who live in accommodation that is legally defined as mobile in some way, such as mobile homes and residential boaters. The discussion includes a consideration of how wider society can constrain not only lifestyles associated with moveable habitats but also how residents feel about their homes.