Towards an age-friendly London: progress report 2025

As Mayor of London, I want our city to be the greatest city in the world in which to grow old. This is why, in 2018, I signed up to the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities. Out of this came the Age Friendly Action Plan, which sets out a range of commitments developed with older people to ensure London works for them.

This report sets out the progress that we have made since I published my action plan in November 2023, covering the period to the end of March 2025. It shows we have made a difference in some important areas.

We provided more housing that meets the changing needs older people can face as they grow older; be it specialist, accessible or adaptable housing, or the opportunity to downsize or move out of the capital.

Older Londoners enjoy free travel and the city’s streets are safer and more accessible for older pedestrians. I provided more public toilets and am making a large investment in providing more across the transport network.

Our campaigns led to older Londoners living on low-income receiving a total of £9.5 million of unclaimed Pension Credit. We gave older Londoners access to advice and provided heating and insulation improvements to enable them to keep their homes warm and keep down their bills.

Older Londoners took up free courses that enabled them to enter employment, upskill or change career. Our free essential digital skills training and Digital Inclusion Service for Londoners led to more becoming digitally literate and get online. 

I am extremely grateful to the many older volunteers who are the dedicated backbone to the success of our Team London and Major Events programme. We couldn’t do without them. 

I am pleased more boroughs are endeavouring to make London a better place for our ageing residents by becoming members of the UK and global network of age-friendly communities. I hope more boroughs and partners will join us in our collective effort to realise my ambition for London to be a truly age-friendly action city. 

We have achieved much to be proud of. However, there is still a much more to do. I am keen to hear from and work with older Londoners as to what more can be done.

— Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London

In November 2023, the Mayor published his Age-Friendly Action Plan, setting out his ambition for making London the greatest city in the world in which to grow old. Older Londoners are a vital part of what makes London a vibrant, and intergenerational city. However, there is much more that can be done to make a fairer and safer for older Londoners. The plan aims to deliver improvements in key areas in older people’s lives, such as housing, transport, digital inclusion and income maximisation.

This plan was developed in response to the Mayor signing London up to the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities. The Network has established a framework for how communities around the globe can go about making their localities more age-friendly, which the Mayor adopted.

This report covers the progress made in the period up to 31 March 2025. It also reports against a set of key performance indicators produced in partnership with the London Age-friendly Forum, following the Plan’s publication. Comparisons are made against performance in 2024–25 and 2023–24. Where data for 2024–25 was not yet available, comparisons were made against the most recent annual set of data and the year before it.

The WHO’s framework outlines an expectation that communities engage their local citizens; carry out an assessment of the age-friendliness of the city; develop a city-wide action plan based on local priorities and needs; deliver the action plan and assess the impact of those actions. It identifies eight different ‘domains’:

• housing
• outdoor spaces and buildings
• transportation
• civic, cultural and social participation
• employment and skills
• health and social care
• communication and information and respect
• social inclusion. 

The Mayor led a collaboration involving older people’s stakeholder organisations and informed Londoners from across the capital to identify, prioritise and develop key actions that need to be delivered to make London one of the world’s leading age-friendly cities. For ease of access, older Londoners’ priorities for making London more age-friendly were grouped into thematic actions.

The Mayor provided more housing that met older Londoners’ changing needs. This included delivering additional accessible and adaptable housing, so that older Londoners who want to downsize and move out of London can do so. He also provided more affordable homes and affordable rent and long-term rent homes, which provide benefits for older private renters.

The Mayor has made London’s streets and public spaces more welcoming, accessible and navigable for older people, including by providing boroughs with funding and guidance to do this. He also addressed the concerns of older people disembarking at bus stops where there are cycle bypasses through remedial work at bus stops with identifiable problems.

The Mayor published Equity in Motion, in February 2024. Actions include a continuing commitment to the older person’s Freedom Pass and the 60+ London Oyster, conducting a pan-TfL review of the effectiveness of the travel assistance provided to older Londoners, and a campaign aimed at encouraging older people to cycle and be active travellers.

Between November 2023 and the end of March 2025 older people had their say, through Talk London. The Mayor enabled older Londoners to participate in social activities through community-led projects funded by Building Strong Communities (BSC) grants. Among them were the intergenerational projects, Brighter Together and the Intergenerational Wellness Garden.

The Mayor provided free courses to help adult Londoners to enter employment, upskill or change career, through his Skills Bootcamps for Londoners programme. The Mayor will continue to use the Adult Skills Fund, Skills Bootcamps and the new London Talent Pathways fund to support adults over 50 to retrain, refresh skills or move into sectors with opportunities.

Supporting older Londoners to live healthier, more fulfilling lives remained an important priority for the Mayor. That’s why he continued to champion a ‘health in all policies’ approach to improve health and wellbeing, prevent ill health, tackle health inequalities and promote active travel.

The Mayor funded a legal entitlement to free essential digital skills training through the Adult Skills Fund. In the academic year 2023–24 more people aged 50 and over accessed learning through the digital skills entitlement than in 2022–23. The Mayor helped older Londoners get on-line through Get Online London.

The Mayor supported low-income older Londoners to increase their incomes and celebrated the valuable roles older Londoners play in strengthening their communities. The GLA celebrates older people by marking International Day of Older People, which takes place every year on 1 October.