Almost 50 guests, from people in their 20s to those in their 80s, attended the unique event hosted by Cornwall Care, the county’s largest provider of care for older people.
The workshop at the Hall for Cornwall was led by the Bishop of Truro and included a presentation by Mike Lake, director general of Help the Aged, on care, budgets, funding and the future.
It explored how forward-thinking people could achieve their aims and ambitions for active living in their mature years, sharing their experiences and lives with others.
As a platform for discussion, Cornwall Care invited nationally acclaimed architects Pozzoni and PRP to prepare drawings of their ideas for shared housing, including examples of Danish and Swedish co-housing concepts already successfully operating.
Douglas Webb, Chief Executive of Cornwall Care, said: “We are delighted so many interested people attended the event, which was the perfect platform for discussion and debate on the future of living after retirement.
“People tell us that following retirement they want to live life to the full, try new things and enjoy time to do as they please while taking pleasure in the companionship of others.
“Living in Cornwall presents us with many opportunities to enjoy life, whether your passion is art, the sea, the countryside or something completely different.
“The idea of this one-off event was to consider the concept of people living and enjoying life together – whatever their interests may be. We realise it’s experimental, but we wanted to highlight this exciting new concept for Cornwall.
“We heard some fascinating ideas about supporting each other by working and living together in order to design a new and bright future. These ranged from the physical, financial and practical aspects of such a scheme to wellbeing and humanist issues.
“We’d like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Bishop Tim, Mike Lake and the architects for making the evening possible.”
Bishop Tim said: “The discussion showed that there is real appetite to consider different ways of relating to each other and imagination about how we can create and recreate communities given the demographic reality with which we are faced.
“I think it is important for us to continue the conversation and look to ideas about how generations can and do relate to each other and what forms of housing and other schemes can be built which will challenge some of the assumptions we make today.”
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