#ForAccessibleHomes

We're for accessible homes, are you?

Every September, we run a week of action - Accessible Homes Week (AHW) – to celebrate what an accessible home can do for a person's wellbeing, independence and overall quality of life.

Our 2025 Accessible Homes Week will run from 8-12 September. 

As October 2025 marks a decade since the introduction of M4(2) accessible and adaptable dwellings and M4(3) wheelchair user dwellings into building regulations, our theme this year is the accessible housing standards 10 years on.
 
The key research underpinning this year's campaign will be the update of our Insight Report: Forecast for Accessible Homes, which analyses the accessible housing policies of all 324 local plans in England. 

Homes for everyone

With just 9% of the housing stock in England having basic access features, we know that too many disabled and older people are living in unsuitable housing, which can impact on their ability to live independently.

This is why inclusive, accessible homes are a must for everyone – they allow us to use our homes throughout our whole lives, even when our needs change.

In order to make sure that there are enough accessible homes for everyone who needs them, the Government, local authorities, planners, developers and communities all have their part to play to address the shortage.

Here's how you can get involved – in Accessible Homes Week and beyond

• Sign up for email updates  on our Accessible Homes Week 2025
• Follow us on  Instagram ,  Facebook and  LinkedIn , and share our posts.
• Using your social channels, tell us how your accessible home has changed your life and tag us.
• If you have an inaccessible or accessible home story you'd be happy for us to share on our channels, email us and let us know about it. Tell us what key feature or design about your current home could be better and how that would make a difference to your day to day life.
• Read  our research  and the blog series below - and share them with your friends, family and social media network.
• Use the hashtags #AccessibleHomesWeek, #AHW2025, #ForAccessibleHomes.

Last year’s Accessible Homes Week

With a new Labour Government now in office, and with the party’s pledge to increase the number of new homes being built, last year we took the opportunity to urge the Government to uphold the previous administration’s decision to raise the accessibility standard of all new homes to the M4(2) accessible and adaptable standard.

Our 2024 campaign illustrated some of the most tangible value to society of building to the M4(2) standard. We compared the costs of installing  grab rail, stairlift and wet room adaptations in different types of homes. Our findings showed that people living in an M4(1) visitable dwelling who may need to make such adaptations could be almost £27,000 worse off compared to those living in an accessible and adaptable M4(2) home. 

Families and individuals could be forced to spend savings to privately fund essential adaptation, whilst Local Authorities would be picking up the bill for those who do not have savings through a Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) or direct grants if the property is a council owned home.

With Government allocating £625 million to Local Authorities’ DFG funds in 2024/25 (185% more than 10 years ago), unless homes are designed to be more adaptable from the outset, Councils will continue to face increasing pressure on home adaptation grants as the population ages and disability rates rise.

This is one reason why Habinteg continues to urge the Government to make the M4(2) accessible and adaptable standard the baseline for all new homes in England, and to immediately hold the one short consultation with industry stakeholders on the implementation details to make it happen.