Age Friendly Strategy and Action Plan 2024 - 2026

What is an Age Friendly Champion?

An Age Friendly Champion ensures Older people are a priority in the Council’s work and plans, while ensuring that people aged 50+ are at the heart of decision- making processes around the commissioning, planning and delivery of services for older people. The Age Friendly Champion will act as a ‘voice’ for the older people in the council chamber while ensuring the diverse range of older people and the needs they have are understood and communicated. My role will be to work with Age Friendly Forum and Alliance within the existing Age Friendly structures and to support a joined-up approach to creating an age friendly Lisburn and Castlereagh.

How were you appointed as Age Friendly Champion?

I have recently been appointed as the Age Friendly Champion by the council.

Why should Lisburn and Castlereagh be an Age Friendly place to live?

Our ageing population is recognised. This means we need to address challenges and opportunities over the next 10-20 years. Failure to adapt to demographic change will result in high costs to our society both monetary and socially. In response to this, we are committed to improving Lisburn and Castlereagh through the World Health Organisation’s Age Friendly Global Network Framework. This will positively impact our residents.

What is the aim of Age Friendly?

The Age Friendly initiative aims to encourage active and healthy ageing by optimising health, stimulating inclusion, and enabling wellbeing in older age. It encourages designing environments for older people. Interventions for delivering an Age Friendly community can help tackle some of the biggest challenges to healthy and active ageing, such as social isolation and loneliness, injuries and falls, inactivity, mental and physical ill health.

What is being done in Lisburn and Castlereagh to become Age Friendly?

Becoming Age Friendly is a several step process, set out by the World Health Organisation. The planning, implementation, evaluation and improvement aspects of Age Friendly is a continuous process. Planning for an Age Friendly Lisburn and Castlereagh has already seen the establishment of mechanisms to involve older people throughout the process. We have completed an Age Friendly survey directly engaging with people who are 50+. It had helped ascertain the age-friendliness of the council area and develop this three-year action plan endorsed by the Age Friendly Alliance.

The progress of the Age Friendly Action Plan is reported to the Lisburn & Castlereagh Strategic Community Planning Partnership as an integral action in the Community Plan Action Plan.

Age Friendly Cities & Communities

Age Friendly Cities & Communities are key to allowing all ages to actively participate in community activities.

Since 2017, we have been recognised as an Age Friendly City. This is a result of us setting out our intentions to the World Health Organisation to deliver a strategy and action plan in partnership with our older residents and likeminded local organisations.

Through our plans we aim to make Lisburn and Castlereagh a place:

• where everyone is treated with respect, regardless of their age
• that makes it easy to stay connected to those around you and those you love
• that helps people stay healthy and active, even at the oldest ages 
• that helps those who can no longer look after themselves to live with dignity and enjoyment with their rights protected

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has established a global network of Age Friendly Cities and Communities that encourages active ageing by optimising opportunities for health, participation, and security.

An Age Friendly Community will:

• establish mechanisms to involve older people throughout the Age Friendly process
• develop a baseline assessment of the age-friendliness of the area under eight WHO domains
• develop a 3-year council-wide action plan
• identify measurements to monitor progress against this plan

Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council has undertaken the steps outlined and is now a member of the Global Age Friendly Cities and Communities.

There are eight Age Friendly domains which are designed to overlap and interact with one another. They overlap with the physical environment, social environment and public services.

The eight Age Friendly domains:

1. Outdoor Spaces and buildings
2. Transport
3. Housing
4. Social Participation
5. Social Inclusion
6. Civic Participation
7. Communication and information
8. Community and Health service

Since 2019, we have been part of the regional Age Friendly Northern Ireland Network; and are part of a 50 strong Network of Age Friendly Communities, facilitated by the UK Centre for Ageing Better.

This is our second Age Friendly Action Plan and covers the period 2024-26.

Strategic Community Planning Partnership

This group collectively works to deliver the actions of the Lisburn and Castlereagh Community Plan. This includes assessing the outcomes of the age friendly elements contained within it.

Age Friendly Alliance

Established in 2018, the Lisburn & Castlereagh Age Friendly Alliance brings together stakeholders responsible for supporting other people. These organisations include: PSNI, Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service, TADA (who represent and improve the wellbeing of rural communities) Belfast Health & Social Care Trust, South Eastern Health & Social Care Trust, Policing & Community Safety Partnership, Linking Generations, Lagan Valley Rural Transport, Northern Ireland Housing Executive, Alzheimer’s Society, Volunteer Now, Libraries NI, Translink and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.

Age Friendly Internal Working Group

To support the age friendly process, we have formed an Age Friendly internal working group. It focuses our directorates to work collaboratively on age friendly initiatives. This ‘one council’ approach has delivered such initiatives as Positive Ageing Month and appropriate service planning. An example of service planning is initiating an internal work plan to address the needs of our ageing population which will ensure service plans are followed and tracked though a Red, Amber, Green (RAG) approach.

Age Friendly Over 50s Forum

The Age Friendly Over 50s Forum is a consultative group to ensure people over the age of 50 are involved in the age friendly process. Members of the forum sit on the Age Friendly Alliance to ensure the voice of older people is represented.

 

Relevant Strategies

Public sector organisations, including councils, are working towards meeting strategies spearheaded by the Department for Communities (DfC).

These include:

• Active Ageing Strategy 2016-023
• Making Better Lives 2013 -23
• Translink: Better Connected
• NI Housing Executive: Older Peoples Housing Strategy 2021/22 to 2026/27
• DfC: Public realm/environmental improvement

The Active Ageing Strategy’s vision is to have Northern Ireland:

“Being an age friendly region in which people, as they grow older, are valued, and supported to live actively to their fullest potential; with their rights respected and their dignity protected.”

This is the basis of our Age Friendly Alliance. We all want to encourage independence, participation, care and self-fulfilment amongst older people. Together we can achieve this over time.

Population

Lisburn and Castlereagh has an ageing population. There has been a 2% increase between the 2011 and 2021 censuses. We anticipate population growth to be driven by the 65 to 84 (+66%) and 85+ (+153%) age cohorts by 2041. The implication of this is that by over the next 20 years, more than 25% of the population of Lisburn and Castlereagh is projected to be over the age of 65.

Demographics as of 2021

Population:149,100up 11% since 2011

Households with usual residents:60,100up 14% since 2011

Age:

As a city with an ageing population, we will work to help mirror the sentiment of the NI Housing Executive Older People’s Housing Strategy. Our Local Development Plan covers the need to plan for the future and ensure different housing options and models are available for older people. This will help support independent living.

Health

In the 2021 census, 53% of people aged 65+ stated their health was good/very good. This is a notable decline from the age band 40-65 year’s age band. This could be improved through offering support and self-management.

In Lisburn and Castlereagh through our programmes and funding opportunities we promote healthy eating and exercise to our older residents. Through promoting participation, we are enabling and empowering older people to participate actively in community life. These programmes deliver positive impacts on their health, wellbeing and happiness.

Loneliness

Loneliness can take different forms depending on chosen lifestyle. Some may:

• choose to be alone and live happily with limited contact with others
• have lots of social contact, be in a relationship or part of a family, and still feel lonely especially if you do not feel understood or cared for by the people around you

Engaging in social contact and relationships can have positive impacts on mental health and wellbeing.

The ‘Wellbeing in Northern Ireland Report 2021/22’ stated that 20.7% of people in Lisburn and Castlereagh reported being lonely some of the time.

Crime

PCSPs (Policing and Community Safety Partnerships) are local bodies that work to make your community safer. They focus on the policing and community safety issues that matter most in the Lisburn & Castlereagh area. Statistics for 2022/23 regarding crime against older people 60+ can be seen in the table below.

Statistics for 2022/23 regarding crime against older people 60+

Type of crime	2021/22	2022/23
Violence against the person	225	178
Theft offences - Burglary	59	47
Theft offences (excluding vehicle offences)	70	70
Criminal damage	109	93
Other offences	25	29
Total	488	417

We welcome the reduction in crime involving older people between 21/22 and 22/23. This can be positively linked to the work of the PSNI and PCSP delivering local solutions to local problems through interventions and awareness raising programmes.

Self-efficacy

The concept of self-efficacy is how capable a person feels they are to make decisions and influence events that affect their lives.

Statistics from 2021/22 health & Wellbeing report show that 21.4% of those aged 65+ within Lisburn and Castlereagh have low self-efficacy. We want to reduce this by encouraging these individuals to participate in programmes to increase their mental wellbeing, physical health such as training workshops, group activities etc. This is delivered locally through our Age Friendly Forum activities, awareness events and other programmes.

By improving confidence, we anticipate older people will feel more in control of decisions affecting them.

Dementia

Dementia is a progressive condition and can affect people of any age, but it is most common in older people. According to the Northern Health and Social Care Trust there are just over 20,000 people living with dementia in NI. This number is projected to double by 2040.

Due to the size of the older population in Northern Ireland, we will have the largest increase in the number of people living with dementia across the UK by 2040. Our Age Friendly Alliance will be lobbying for increased funding to implement a Regional Dementia Care Pathway. It will help individuals to obtain a diagnosis and get access to much-needed care and support.

Community engagement is important to the council. We partnered with the Public Health Agency and two neighbouring councils in 2020 to get the views of our ageing population i.e. 50 years of age and over. Over 1,270 people got involved in this first consultation of its kind to find out issues encountered locally by older residents. It was designed to address each of the eight Age Friendly Domains in turn, with supplemental questions posed on digital technology, finances and the impact of COVID-19.

We discussed the survey results with our Age Friendly Alliance and Age Friendly Over 50s Forum in sessions like this one pictured below.

 

Together we identified priorities for this action plan and agreed to group the 8 Age Friendly domains into 4 strategic themes:

1. Community projects & services 
2. Communication & information
3. Where we live & how we get around 
4. Staying involved

Health and independence

To allow older people to remain healthy and independent in the community it is vital that projects and services are in place at a local level.

Services

We wanted to know if people were aware of available services to support them in their local area. The results were:

• 44% not aware
• 33% aware of some
• 23% aware of them

These figures indicated a need for us to action methods to address the sharing of knowledge on these services within this action plan.
Decision making is important for older people so in the survey we asked for feedback on how involved they felt they were in making informed decisions about services in their local community. The results were:

• 37% mostly yes
• 36% sometimes
• 28% mostly no

Given that a combined 73% felt they were mostly involved or sometime involved and 28% did not feel involved in making informed decisions about services in their local community, it highlighted a need for case studies and awareness raising activities. These actions should highlight the importance of getting involved in our community planning outreach sessions and our Over 50s Forum.

Health and exercise

According to the UK Chief Medical Officers’ Guidelines, the recommended weekly exercise for older adults is at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous activity. This is alongside strengthening activities on two days per week.

To help shape our actions we asked the survey respondents how they felt their health was and how often they participated in physical activity.

It was positive to see a baseline figure of 44% considering their health and wellbeing to be good and 9% rating theirs as excellent. We hope our planned actions over the 2024/26 period will reduce the number that rated their health as fair/not so good from 44%.

Frequency of physical exercise

Exercise frequency	% of respondents
Daily	31%
A few times a week	40%
Once a week	9%
Once a month	2%
Rarely	15%
Never	3%

Alongside partner organisations we will work to provide programmes to encourage older residents to exercise. For those who may feel lonely, exercise-based activities can help them meet new people too.

Throughout Positive Ageing Month each October we host a variety of taster activities at our leisure facilities across the Lisburn and Castlereagh area. As a council we also offer concessionary prices for those over 60s on our Vitality Membership scheme which gives access to all our leisure facilities and classes.

 

For active aging it is vital that people stay connected with what is happening in their area and get information in a timely manner. The provision of information also helps them to meet their life and personal needs.

Accessible information is important for age friendly communities to help them:

• stay connected
• engage in and contribute to their communities
• access support when needed

Many organisations across the public, private and third sector produce information that can help older people. Our survey aimed to find out how older people want to access information.

The results showed that online communication in various forms is popular with older residents as shown in the chart below.

How people use the internet to communicate

Activity	% of respondents
Text messaging	98%
Email	94%
WhatsApp	88%
Video calling	77%
Social media	75%

When engaging with an older audience it is important to harness the information in the correct way. Our new user-friendly, accessible website launched in December 2023 has helped us achieve this for our services. The Over 50s Forum was one of the consultation groups during the testing stage.

It was reassuring to find that our research showed that 55% of the survey respondents liked to receive information by email. Such communication channels allow them to take their time to read the information and share it with others.

This statistic supports our recent move in 2023 to make our residents’ magazine City Wide digital so it goes straight to the inbox of those who subscribe to it. We do however place a small number of hard copies in central community locations across Lisburn and Castlereagh.

Throughout 2023 and 2024 we hosted in person events to bring organisations together to provide information to our older residents and discuss any concerns they had with them. These events were popular as those who attended appreciated the availability of information and the chance to hear directly form experts in fall prevention, home safety, how to spot scams etc.

Earlier in this report we identified housing stock as being important for older individuals. Alongside the type of house, the following are essential to safety and wellbeing:

• access to community services to help us age safely and comfortably in our community
• ability to live independently
• feeling safe in home and not at risk of falling

To address these as a council we can:

• approve planning applications that meet the housing stock requirement of our Local Development Plan
• continue to deliver free home safety checks
• encourage other organisations to provide local services that help older residents keep living independently

Our survey showed that 82% of respondents placed extreme importance of living independently at home. Sadly, this is not always possible for reasons such as frailty, declining health or the loss of a spouse.

Above we have referenced the provision of local services and in the Lisburn and Castlereagh area there are many agencies and organisations that can help people remain in their homes as long as possible. Though 49% of respondents did not feel it was easy to get enough support at home as they age.

Once these services are no longer of benefit to older residents they may move into sheltered housing, residential or nursing homes depending on their personal needs.

Like all houses those of older people would require maintenance and home repairs at times. Our survey found that 57% of respondents did not feel it was easy to get home repairs as they age. The reasons behind this included trust in letting tradesmen into their home and the lack of subsided schemes to keep hourly rate costs down. 

Outdoor Spaces & Buildings

The outdoor environment, public buildings and outdoor spaces have a major impact on the mobility, independence and quality of life of our residents. Being able to access and enjoy public spaces helps us to ‘age in place’ and supports positive physical and mental wellbeing. As part of the Age Friendly survey certain opinions on the state of current provisions on parks and open spaces were noted. High among the satisfaction rates were the safety of public spaces and green spaces at 84% and 83% feel safe in outdoor spaces.

Through various research projects ‘green exercise’ has been proven as a successful way to benefit mental and physical wellbeing when people can exercise outdoors.

Recreational walking has a greater effect and cognitive restorative effect for older people of poor mental health in green settings. In line with this evidence our Age Friendly Co-ordinator undertook a walking audit with our Over 50s Forum. This group walked around a few of our outdoor spaces including Glenmore Park Trail.

Those who took part in the audit had positive things to say about the council-owned green spaces within Lisburn and Castlereagh. The areas they were auditing on our behalf included accessibility, safety and cleanliness.

As a council we continue to undertake public realm works in Lisburn City Centre and our small settlements to provide improved lighting, road safety measures, wider footpaths and additional street furniture. These projects have been supported by central government departments.

 

Transport

Transportation, including accessibility and affordable public transport, is a key factor influencing active ageing. Being able to get to where we need to go is important to:

• stay connected with friends and family
• help to avoid feelings of loneliness
• promote wellbeing
• encourage civic engagement
• aid access to community and health services

The public transport network is improving but there is still plenty that can be done. Translink has outlined its plans within its ‘Better Connected’ strategy. It states:

“Our mission is to lead the transformation of transport in Northern Ireland: we will create the advanced public transport services and integrated networks which connect people and communities, enhance the economy, and improve health and the environment.”

Translink’s plans on ‘Connecting Communities’ was welcomed by the Commissioner for Older People Northern Ireland (COPNI).

As a council we are committed to working alongside Translink to enhance public transport in our area. Through the planning process we have approved plans to enhance the Park and Ride at Moira Train Station and the reopening of the Knockmore Train Halt.

In terms of public buses through the Infrastructure Pillar of Belfast Region City Deal there will be investment in a range of projects to connect people to opportunities and services through enhanced and sustainable infrastructure.

Subject to NI Executive approval, it is the ambition of the Belfast Region City Deal to bring forward the Belfast Rapid Transit Phase 2. If successful, this expansion to the rapid transport network will provide a high-quality passenger experience north to Antrim and Newtownabbey and south to Lisburn and Castlereagh.

Within our area those who took part in our survey advised that:

• 85% drive themselves
• 19% walk
• 18% rely on family and friends
• 17% use the bus
• 9% take the train
• 6% take a taxi
• 4% cycle
• 1% use a moped/scooter

Such a high percentage of older residents driving is a positive as it enables them to participate in civic life. However, over time people may have to give up driving for health reasons. This is when public transport become even more important as it helps them stay connected and access support services. We do not want to see people become lonely and isolated when they can no longer drive safely.

Staying involved is about participating in leisure, social, cultural, spiritual, and volunteering activities in the community. It allows older people to continue to exercise their independence and enjoy respect and esteem. 

Age UK promotes an inclusive society where everyone, including all older people, are treated with dignity and respect. This will not only benefit older people but will also help to develop greater social cohesion, tolerance, stability and prosperity in the wider society.

As we age, people often experience conflicting types of behaviour towards them with many feeling they are respected yet others feel there is a lack of consideration for them and their needs. The World Health Organisation sees an Age friendly community as one that includes education about ageing, inter-generational activities, and respectful and inclusive services.

Our survey acknowledged that 69% of people felt they were treated with respect. A combined 32% felt they were sometimes or mostly not treated with respect, which could include groups of lonely or isolated residents.

Within our council we undertake intergenerational projects that bring together members of our Youth Council and older people. This helps them understand how together they can help shape our community and give a voice to their generations.

The survey also highlighted a need to ensure the needs of older people are met in their communities. Through community-based funding including hardship grants we encourage local groups to deliver projects to encourage engagement and address isolation.
 

Strategic Priority 1:Community projects and services

Ensuring there are appropriate projects and services in the community is vital to helping people stay connected, engaged and enables people to contribute to their community and access support when needed.

Supporting Outcomes:

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Strategic Priority 2:Communication and information

Staying connected with events, people and getting timely information to manage life and meet personal needs is vital for ageing actively. Age Friendly communities have relevant information that is readily accessible with varying capacities and resources.

Supporting Outcomes:

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Strategic Priority 3:Where we live and how we get around

As we age being able to access and enjoy public spaces is an important aspect of physical and mental wellbeing. Public transport, is a key factor influencing active ageing and getting where we need to go. Housing is essential to safety and wellbeing with appropriate housing and wrap around support services influencing the independence and quality of life of older people.

Supporting Outcomes:

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Strategic Priority 4:Staying involved

Staying involved is about participating in leisure, social, cultural, and volunteering activities in the community, that allows an ageing population to continue to exercise their independence, feel safe and to ensures they live with dignity and respect.

Supporting Outcomes: