The problem of how to house Britain's expanding population of older people presents one of the most acute social and economic challenges of the day. The demographics, stimulated by falling birth rates and improved life expectancy, are startling. While the population of those aged IS to 64 in the UK is expected to increase by an average of 29,000 per year, the population of those over the age of 65 is estimated to balloon by almost 10 times that number to an increase of 278,000 every year. Clearly this is already placing enormous pressure on care homes. The Institute for Sustainable Construction recently estimated that in order to avert a crisis, the UK would need to build more than 15,500 new residential care developments by 2035, almost 800 a year. Considering that the country has only around 18,000 such units, the scale of the construction challenge becomes apparent.
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