A FAR-REACHING plan to transform Oxfordshire into “an age-friendly county” is being unveiled today.

Oxfordshire Age UK said the county’s growing elderly population should be seen as an opportunity, not a problem.

The study, being launched at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, highlights serious levels of inequality between rich and poor pensioners, which it says see Oxfordshire’s elderly living in two separate counties.

Recommendations range from a drive on benefits, to more support for people with dementia.

It backs a new system being introduced across Oxfordshire giving pensioners their own personal budget “to buy” the help they want and calls for a ‘council of elders’ in every town, with local authorities and health trusts attending the new forums.

The report also proposes ‘senior campuses’ in schools or colleges, where pensioners can learn to use the Internet.

Other proposals include: l A private- public sector partnership in every town to ensure accessible meeting places, transport and public toilets.

l An employers’ charter committing main employers to “nurturing senior talent and not scrapping it at 65”.

l A countywide campaign to create Friends of Dementia, to help people with dementia and their carers.

Oxfordshire Age UK chief executive Paul Cann said the report should encourage people to view the county’s growing elderly population as a “demographic triumph, rather than a demographic timebomb”.

Mr Cann said little progress had been made towards addressing huge variations in life expectancy, health and “access to a decent quality of life in retirement” since the late 1950s.

He said: “Cutteslowe’s infamous ‘snob wall,’ separating the Cowley workers on their housing estate from the well-offs in North Oxford, might have been demolished, but the underlying inequalities remain. From leafy North Oxford to Blackbird Leys takes about 10 minutes in the car – and marks a drop in life expectancy of roughly 10 years.”

Parish councillor Brian Lester, 64, of Pegasus Road, Blackbird Leys, said: “There is inequality still, but not as much as there used to be.

“I would say it has definitely changed for the better because of the help people get. A lot of people are able to get social help from any walk of life if need be, not just working class people.”

The report estimates 7,000 people suffer from dementia, with only a third diagnosed with the condition.

It also says nearly half of rural Oxfordshire is doing badly in providing access to key services.

Mr Cann welcomed news that a system allowing pensioners to decide on the assistance they should receive, piloted in north Oxfordshire, is to be rolled out across the county.

But he said provision of ‘support brokers’ offering free advice and help would be needed for a scheme to give personal budgets for care.