Where will we house our elderly?

Moves are being made to avert a potential future crisis in the Welshpool area due to the average age of our population creeping upwards.

Recent surveys have shown that with residents living longer and fewer young people coming into the local population, healthcare and housing services will face major challenges in the next 15-20 years.

But Powys County Council is acting now and has launched a fact finding and opinions process that will feed into meeting those future challenges.

Cllr. Stephen Hayes is Cabinet Member with responsibility for Adult Social Care and he explained: “Powys County Council is committed to helping people live healthy, independent lives for as long as possible. We would therefore like to hear how you think that we can best meet the accommodation needs of older people in the future to ensure that their health, housing and social care needs can be met.”

He added that the results of an online survey will be used to inform the way that health and social care agencies work with local communities to meet older people’s future accommodation needs.

“The survey is open to all ages but for those under 50, we’d ask people to think about what their future needs may be,” added Cllr. Hayes.

The survey follows on from a number of workshops with elderly people on the same subject and paper versions have also been circulated to stakeholders. The online survey is designed to open the questions up to a wider public.

The survey can be found at www.powys.gov.uk/haveyoursay and will be available until midnight on November 11.