Retirement lifestyles in a niche housing market: park-home living in England

Park homes are a small, niche sector of the United Kingdom housing market. This paper reports a study of 40 residents of park-homes that focused on their motivations for choosing this form of accommodation, and on their views about and experiences of park-home living. Whilst the sector has long provided a low-cost housing option for people of all ages, in recent years it has increasingly aligned itself as a lifestyle choice for older people. Despite their diverse reasons for moving to park homes, most respondents reported very positive experiences of park-home living and shared similar views about the benefits, but there were a few dissenting voices. Two conceptual frameworks are used to help understand the experiences of the respondents. 'Elective belonging' offers a way of contextualising the narratives that people articulate about their lifestyle choices and that affirm their sense of biographical continuity even having moved to new locations. This notion also helps frame some of the tensions that arise among the residents. The second framework, 'biographical disruption', is a way of framing the stories that the respondents told when their lives had not followed the anticipated trajectory and by which they coped and made sense of the circumstances which soured their chosen lifestyle.