Claim that older people’s views ignored

The needs, interests and opinions of older people on the physical
and social regeneration of cities are being ignored, professor of
social gerontology at Keele University Chris Phillipson warned last
week.

He said older people were a “lost generation” in the urban
regeneration debate, and that the fact they were being ignored by
policy makers was a “pernicious form of ageism”.

“Is the urban regeneration of our cities good for older people? If
you look at many of the reports coming out on the issue, older
people are barely mentioned,”he said.

“If you ask older people about their communities they are often
very committed to them but don’t like lots of things about them. We
need to use older people’s knowledge because they have lived there
for many years.”

Phillipson has produced research for the Economic and Social
Research Council showing that 60 per cent of older people living in
parts of London, Liverpool and Manchester feel isolated in their
communities. 

– Research from www.shef.ac.uk/uni/projects/gop/Go_Findings_19.pdf