Dentons and Property Week brought together an expert panel from across the later-living sector to discuss the need to educate investors, occupiers and council planning teams about the sector’s key role.

Roy Pinnock, head of UK Planning at Dentons, and Property Week editor Lem Bingley, were joined by: Honor Barratt, Chief Executive, Birchgrove; Kevin Beirne, Director of Retirement, Octopus Real Estate; Jamie Bunce, Chief Executive, Inspired Villages; Marcus Davidson-Wright, Chief Financial Officer, Untold Living; Caryn Donahue, Head of Senior Housing Transactions, Operational Capital Markets, Savills; Andrew Ovey, Head of Healthcare Real Estate, AXA IM Alts; Jose de Pablo, Director of Healthcare Acquisitions, Harrison Street; and Andrew Muckian, Real Estate partner, Dentons along with Tim Clark, Legal and Professional editor, Property Week.

Our roundtable panel discussed topics including:

• Opportunities for growth
• The recession proof sector – it’s a long-term game
• Appetite from big hotel chains to move into the later-living sector
• Lack of knowledge about business models in the sector; clear guidelines needed in the sector
• Ageing will probably be the single biggest macro-economic influence
• The UK will need to allocate up to a quarter of all new homes to later living
• Planning is another big sticking point. Tweaks to the planning framework could help normalise the retirement village as a class of development

The outlook for UK later living as reported in Property Week on Thursday 9 March 2023.