Is the answer to the care crisis a Granny in the garden
Yes, say Andy and his mum Kath – part of a growing number who’ve built a separate mini-home so elderly loved ones can be close . . . but not too close!
After a month in her new home, Kath Lowe couldn’t be happier. Whether she is baking bread in her state-of-the-art kitchen or relaxing in her sitting room, enjoying the view, the 81-year-old grandmother says the move has given her a new lease of life.
‘It has a nice ambience, a lovely outlook and it is my own space,’ she says. But best of all is the fact that her son Andy is only a stone’s throw away. Or, to be precise, 30 yards down the garden path.
for widow Kath has just moved in to a purpose-built granny annexe erected at the end of his garden.
All bi-fold doors and cedar cladding, it was built at a cost of £67,000 and boasts a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and lounge.
But most importantly, it has enabled Kath to maintain her independence and allow her son to keep an eye on her. ‘I can live my life while he can live his,’ she says.
for Andy, 59, who lives in the village of Bardsey to the north of Leeds, the benefit is knowing that his mother is not lonely.
‘Where Mum used to live, she belonged to the Women’s Institute but talking to her she said her loneliness was about the day-to-day stuff, eating on her own at night and having no-one to chat to,’ he says.
‘When I looked into it I realised that living alone can actually accelerate ageing. Now Mum is just down the bottom of the garden so we can have dinner together each day. Being able to have daily contact and something to look forward to is important.’
And the Lowes are at the forefront of a new family dynamic — with the garden acting as a buffer between the generations. the number of annexes in england has increased by more than 50 per cent in the past four years. While not all of these will be for elderly parents, there is no doubt that having a ‘granny in the garden’ is becoming an increasingly popular option.
A desire to maintain independence for as long as possible combined with spiralling care costs and worries about the quality of the care that is on offer mean families are looking for alternative ways to look after elderly relatives.
Not only is erecting a granny annexe in the garden relatively cheap but it also maintains privacy for both parties. And there are financial advantages — if a relative over 65 is living in it then it will be exempt from council tax.
‘We have been in the business for 30 years but in the past five years there has been a dramatic increase in demand for these sort of buildings for the elderly to live in,’ says felix Bolger, managing director of Homelodge, a company that has erected some 200 annexes for elderly clients in recent years.
‘What people are finding is that rather than spending £50,000 a year on an old people’s home, for a year or two’s money they can purchase an asset that will be there for good.’
there are also benefits for wider society. ‘there is a lot of talk about a lack of housing, particularly familysized houses,’ says Mr Bolger. ‘the benefit here is by moving into an annexe, older people not only release their capital but allow their family house to go back on the market.’
Of all the problems facing the country, how to care for a rapidly ageing population is one of the most pressing.
Soaring life expectancy means people will soon spend at least two decades in retirement.
While inevitably there will be those who have health care requirements that necessitate specialist accommodation and nursing, the majority want to live independently for as long as possible. One study showed that older people fear going into a care home more than death.
But squeezed social care budgets mean that for those who do stay in their own homes, any minor care needs are increasingly falling upon relatives’ shoulders. Already squeezed by the demands of work and looking after their own children, many find it difficult to devote the time needed to elderly relatives.
As a result there are concerns that elderly people living alone are becoming increasingly neglected. And in many cases the form this neglect takes is not physical — but emotional.
EArLIer this year a study claimed Britain’s older generations are suffering an ‘epidemic of loneliness’, with almost threequarters now describing themselves as lonely.
Nearly two in five said entire days went by without them speaking to anyone, and around half said they had felt lonely for years.
And campaigners warned that many people — particularly pensioners — were suffering in silence, as the majority had not told their family how they felt.
What’s more, Age UK has found in the past that 1.2million older people in Britain are chronically lonely, with half a million over60s usually spending every day alone. And 3.9million people say television is now their main form of company. One way to avoid this is by physically reuniting different generations of the family. the Office for National Statistics estimates there are now 419,000 multi-generational households, up from around 325,000 in 2001. for Kath Lowe, the decision to move in with Andy was not taken lightly.
She had lived in the family home in Staffordshire since 1964, staying on even when her husband died more than a decade ago. And while her daughter and two grandchildren lived nearby, they had busy lives and are now moving house themselves.
‘Mum used to come and visit quite often and I said if you ever want to live with me in Yorkshire, that option is always on the table,’ says Andy, who is single and works for BUPA. ‘I live in a three-bed detached house and we floated the idea that we could modify a room a couple of years ago.
‘Last August she came up for a trial period to see how she got on and very early on we formed the idea that perhaps we could build an annexe.
‘It was really about Mum taking a decision for her later life and asking “what do I want to do?” and “how do I want to live?” .
‘I had always encouraged mum to take ownership of her own circum-
stances, so it was very much her decision.’
The pair initially thought about moving to a property with a granny annexe but the cost of moving and lack of suitable homes put paid to that. They then considered converting Andy’s garage before coming up with the idea of a bespoke building in the garden.
‘Mum didn’t just want to live in something that had been dumped in my back garden,’ says Andy. After a bit of research they came across a design — known as the Arca — by a company called Garden Hideouts.
They fine-tuned the layout and applied for planning permission in March. After spending £13,000 on groundworks to level the site and connect water and electrical supplies, the build was completed in June.
‘It’s been great so far,’ says Andy. ‘As soon as I get home I go up to the lodge and have a cup of tea and share the news of the day with Mum and we take it in turns to cook tea.’
Because there are no steps or stairs, if Kath’s care needs ever change they can be easily catered for. And if she has to move out, the building could become an office or even rented out for short stays on a site such as Airbnb. But for now, and hopefully many years to come, Kath is enjoying her new way of living.
She says: ‘I am 81 now and I have got my son at the end of the path. Compared with an old people’s home or sheltered housing it is a dream.’
Similar sentiments motivated the move of Wyn Mayne-Flower, who has been happily living in her son’s back garden in Cheshire since 2012.
Having been widowed 29 years ago, she was determined to maintain her independence come what may. But, suffering from arthritis, she began to find coping with the stairs and the garden in her fourbed home too much.
She, too, gave short shrift to the idea of moving into a residential care home. ‘I would never move in to sheltered housing because I just don’t like it,’ she says. ‘I don’t like old age full-stop, so I try to keep away from seeing it as much as possible. I don’t want to be reminded of it.’
So moving in — or almost in — with her son Edward, 63, a postmaster, and his wife Rosemary, seemed the obvious answer. ‘They had some land with the house and offered me a spot on the cabbage patch — the rabbits were taking it over so he was relieved, actually.’
She was also determined to move into something of a decent size. As Wyn herself puts it: ‘I don’t like small areas.’
And so for the past five years she has lived in a lodge measuring a very spacious 20 ft by 60 ft.
THE annexe, built by Homelodge, boasts two en-suite bedrooms, a cloakroom, utility room, an open plan kitchen, dining room and sitting room with a woodburner in a brick inglenook.
The build cost around £150,000 and, despite its size, did not require planning permission because it was designed to comply with the criteria of the Mobile Home Act.
A certificate of lawful development — a legal document confirming the legality of the lodge — was obtained from the local council to ensure Wyn’s total peace of mind. And Wyn likes the fact that she is living near her son, who has three grown-up sons of his own, but not with him.
‘I wouldn’t want to,’ she says. ‘It wouldn’t be fair on them or me because I don’t honestly believe it works — we had always been very good friends and that is the way I wanted to keep it.
‘I see my son every day, he walks the dog past and pops in, and any more than that we do as we want. For me it’s the ideal way of living — it’s cheap and convenient. I have had some very nice homes in the past but I love this.’
Of course, the merging of multiple generations is not all plain sailing. Back in Bardsey, there have been one or two waves caused around the dinner table.
‘Mum is very much from a meatand-two-veg background,’ says Andy. ‘I like things such as pasta and rice and cous cous. She’s been trying to take that on board when it’s her turn to cook but we’ve have had some interesting combinations — her pasta with curry is one that springs to mind!’