INCREASES in life expectancy mean that one person in three born in East Lancashire this year is expected to live to be 100.

Growing life spans will mean in the future that many older people will have to provide for more than three decades of retirement after they finish work.

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This new generation of babies have been dubbed the ‘new centenarians’ because of the increased likelihood of reaching the age of 100.

And figures show the number of centenarians has more than quadrupled in the past 30 years.

More than 7,500 people, including hundreds in East Lancashire, received congratulatory cards from the Queen for reaching ages of 100 and upwards in 2014.

Last year, the Department of Work and Pensions forwarded details of 7,517 people to Buckingham Palace with the number of centenarians set to rocket to around 1.5 million in 2115.

The increase in elderly people over the next generations is guaranteed to involve structural changes in health provision, pensions, housing and social care.

But also there will need to be significant changes to the perception of older people. Brian Todd, who is chair of Blackburn Older Peoples’ Forum said pensions would need to radically change or else people would face an ‘incredibly bleak’ future.

He said: “The UK is the sixth or seventh richest country in the world but has one of the lowest state pensions in Europe. Final salary pensions have been all but scrapped and most jobs you see are minimum wage or zero hours contracts.

“People may live much longer but unless things radically change many of them will live in abject poverty. People in their 20s now will have much worse standards of living than their parents and that will get worse and worse unless the government shows some compassion.”

Carrie Nestor, runs the Friends For Life group, which provides activities and companionship for people aged 55 and over in Higher Croft, Blackburn.

She said: “The important thing as people get older is to remain active and engaged. People are going to be retired for longer so the key is to make as many of those years happy years.“You can have someone who’s 100 with the attitude of a 50-year-old and you can also have younger people who have and older outlook before their time.

“Take advantage of opportunities, use that bus pass for a nice trip out or go and do some light exercise.

“The old saying that ‘age is just a number’ is so true.” Recent figures from the ONS found that the most common age at death in the UK was 86 for men and 89 for women.

Baby girls born today are even more likely to reach 100, with 39 per cent of girls born this year likely to reach the landmark, compared to 32 per cent of boys.