Older People
More than 15% of London’s population are aged 60 or over, and almost 250,000 are 80 and over and 17% of the over 50s have a disability.
I chair the London’s Older People’s Strategy Group, a group that brings together representatives of national charities and over 250 London-wide organisations with the objective of understanding the needs and expectations of our older residents.
We also represent London on the national forum on aging. We have long campaigned for the eradication of age related discrimination legislation on employment and retirement ages, and we are pleased that we have been successful.
LOPSG also founded the Capital Age Festival, which runs every year, and is the largest pan-London arts festival created by and with older people, with over 6,000 people taking part. The Group is central to the Mayor’s engagement with older people and its key aims are to:
develop the capacity and skills of the socially deprived community of older people;
ensure that older people’s views and needs influence all of the GLA’s decision making;
operate as the co-ordinating forum for consultation between the Mayor and his staff;
organize the London Older People’s Assembly every year at City Hall.
LOPSG also founded the Capital Age Festival, which runs every year and is the largest pan-London arts festival created by and with older people.
The GLA have just extended the Freedom Pass scheme giving older Londoners free travel on almost all of London’s public transport, now extended to include morning peak times.