London first assessed its age-friendliness in 2007. “What makes a city age-friendly? London’s contribution to the WHO Age Friendly Cities Project” provided the baseline assessment of London’s age-friendliness against the eight domains identified in the WHO Age-friendly Cities Guide.

In 2015 the Greater London Authority (GLA) commissioned a report “An Age Friendly City – How Far has London come?”. This provided an assessment of progress since the 2007 report and the then state of play. It indicated that London is a world leader in some areas, for example the provision of free transport to all 60 and over. Both reports were informed by the views of older Londoners.

We have an ongoing programme of works to make London’s public transport more accessible to older people, including making more stations step-free and building new rail lines with step free stations, extending the range that older people can travel easily and for free.

The GLA has, for example:
Established housing and planning policies and funding programmes to meet the current and projected housing and spatial needs of older people
Run campaigns to reduce the number of older Londoners living in poverty.
Delivered upskilling and employment programmes for people aged over 50
Delivered programmes to enable older people to be and stay physically active
Run programmes to tackle older people’s digital exclusion
Promoted the positive contribution that older Londoners bring to London
Supported older people’s volunteering
Highlighted older people’s social isolation
Funded Capital Age Festival – an annual free pan-London older people’s cultural festival.

We aim to build on these past activities, to progress the recommendations in the 2015 review and deliver the objectives, programmes and actions relevant to older people which feature in our recently published Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, as well as our Social Integration Strategy.