Heather Osborne from Age UK Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin's presentation presented at the Ageing and Ethnicity conference which took place on the 13th December 2012. A jointly hosted conference by Age UK and Runnymede.

1. Retirement Decision Making
Heather Osborne
Age UK Shropshire Telford & Wrekin

2. Issues & Challenges
• Issues in a rural county
• Challenges of delivering services & support
• What works
• What doesn’t
• What do you think?

3. Shropshire - the Rural Picture
• Mix of urban in Telford & market towns and very
rural areas
• Thinly dispersed rural population over a wide
area
• Two and a half hours drive from one end of
county to the other
• Lots of small villages and hamlets
• Relatively poor public transport
• High levels of fuel poverty
• Some very well off, some not.

4. Telford
• Telford – higher levels of BME communities in
more concentrated areas but has rural areas as
well
• Population 65+ of 25,000 rising to 37,400 by 2025
• 378 people from BME communities (excluding
Irish) or 1.51% of 65+ population
• Majority of BME community are of Asian origin
• Still growing and developing – people moving in

5. Shropshire
• Shropshire – very widely dispersed communities
over huge area
• Population 65+ of 65,000 rising to 91,000 by 2025
• 479 people from BME communities (excluding
Irish) or 0.73% of 65+ population
• Small older POW population – mainly Polish
• Majority are of Asian origin
• Unlike Telford dispersed over wide area
• People come to retire

6. What are the issues?
• Differences in Telford & Shropshire
• Telford – come to work, Shropshire – to retire
• Rurality – how do we find people across such a
large county?
• How do we make contact?
• What do we do once we have made contact?
• Lack of funding due to low numbers
• Costs delivering of delivering in rural areas
• Incoming retirees with no local networks

7. Telford – what works
• Dedicated BME worker funded by Joint
Commissioner – isolated older people
• Developed strong links with some parts of
communities and working on others
• Established groups for Sikh ladies and men
and working with other communities
• Intergenerational work with young and old
• Time and continuity are essential to build trust
and confidence with communities

8. Shropshire – the challenge
• No funding to develop similar role
• There has been some cross over from Telford
work, especially with faith communities e.g.
people attending Sikh temple who live in
Shropshire
• Seen increased take up in Benefits Advice and
Information & Advice across the board.
• Lots of translation help needed

9. So – some thoughts
• Does it have to be paid staff – could it be
community champions/volunteers?
• Could we develop an information pack our Parish
Links could give out? Could Age UK help?
• How will we find people who are not in faith
communities?
• We need to find people when they first move into
the area
• Welcome to Shropshire pack?

10. • Over to you – what do you think?
• Ideas/suggestions
• What works in your area?