RETIREMENT apartments, sheltered housing and other accommodation is becoming a common feature in many large towns and cities.

But many retired and older people, who no longer need or want a family home, are finding it too expensive to make the move – particularly in the light of planning for their future care costs.

Now the Government is being urged to give older people financial incentives to move from large homes into smaller, more manageable accommodation, and free up family properties to try and relieve pressure on that section of the housing market.

Last weekend, The Daily Telegraph reported that Communities Secretary and Bromsgrove MP Sajid Javid is expected to set out plans to tackle the chronic shortage of housing in a White Paper later this month.

The plans, which are still to be finalised, could enable the Government to help pensioners with their moving costs or offer an exemption on stamp duty to encourage them to move, says the Telegraph.

The paper added that the idea of helping older people to downsize was first raised by Lord Newby, a Liberal Democrat minister in the Coalition Government. He said that more than half of the people over the age of 55 had spare rooms and suggested the Government help them move house.

The director of over 50s group Saga Paul Green said: “If the Prime Minister can bring in measures to enable people to 'rightsize' in retirement, this would be a true inter-generational solution to the housing crisis and would deliver on Mrs May's promise of helping young and old alike.

“People should be free to choose how and where they live. However, there are many people who want to downsize but are put off because of the cost. Saga has been lobbying successive governments for a stamp duty exemption for downsizing and buying age-appropriate homes.

“This would be a triple win for Britain and for inter-generational fairness. Independent economists estimated this would prompt an extra 111,000 family homes would come onto the market; boost the building of homes suited to older generations and it could also boost the Government coffers due to an estimated £500 million in stamp duty from consequential house moves.”

Saga estimates there are 3.4 million households aged over 65 who are potential ‘rightsizers’: 1.1 million have one spare bedroom and 2.3 million have two or more spare bedrooms.

The group’s research shows that seven in 10 over 50s would like to 'right size' in retirement to smaller homes or age-related developments.

Britain needs a homes to be adapted or built to help older people live well in later life. Only one per cent of Britons live in retirement developments, compared with 17 per cent in the US and 13 per cent in Australia.