A STAGGERING 2,000 new 'extra-care bungalows' will be built across Cheshire by 2010.

Cheshire County Council has announced an ambitious £100m-plus project to provide affordable accommodation for the county's rapidly increasing elderly population.

The 'extra-care homes' - single and double occupancy properties - will allow pensioners to live independently within secure communities, and within easy reach of 24-hour care.

Macclesfield nursing home owner John Burton believes the new homes are vital if a bed-blocking crisis within the NHS is to be averted, but says the authority also needs to drastically increase the number of nursing home beds.

He has just received planning permission to build a new home on land next to the Hope Green Nursing Home on London Road. This will increase the number of beds by 32, from 42 to 74, but Mr Burton expects to fill these within just four months. Hope Green is currently turning away about eight people a week.

Help the Aged have also welcomed the announcement, but warned that investment is needed across the board.

The 'extra-care homes' will be built by private companies through the Private Finance Initiative and then rented by a non-profit making Housing Association. The county council has been given permission by the Government to bid for £13-17m worth of PFI credits to help build the first 400 homes by 2006.

The authority has not yet decided how many of the homes will be built in Macclesfield Borough.

County councillor Lynn Hardwick, social services executive member, announced the project on Tuesday.

"The scheme will provide world class standards...fine, affordable accommodation backed by multi-discipline care teams living nearby, providing 24-hour cover," she said. "It is a huge project, probably involving several partners and whilst the total cost will be enormous, so will the advantages.

"It will provide new levels of on-the-spot care for Cheshire's elderly - many of whom want to retain the independence of their own front door. We will be providing the kind of care that is more acceptable to older people and in doing so, helping to address the well-documented problems caused by the closure of private homes across the country."

Cheshire has lost nearly 800 nursing beds since 1999, and another 37 were lost last week after the Barclay Hall nursing home in Mobberley announced its intention to close.

Cheshire social services currently care for 8,000 older people, 5,000 of them in their own homes.

But in the next 15 years, the number of over 65s will rise by 37,000, accompanied by a 25 per cent increase in the over 85s by 2011.

Sheelagh Connolly, Cheshire's older people's services manager, said: "This very considerable programme of extra-care housing will provide both an alternative to long-term residential care and also help us to manage the rapidly-escalating costs of looking after our growing population of older people."

John Burton said: "This is definitely needed. Demand for our beds at the moment is unbelievable and unless something is done there will be the worst bed-blocking crisis that the NHS has ever seen."

Andrea Lane, of Help the Aged, said: "While Help the Aged welcomes the investment, there also needs to be investment in the traditional services that help people in their own homes. We have to be able to offer older people different ways of living, like other age groups. One size does not fit all."

The extra-care homes will be available to rent, buy, or acquire on a co-ownership basis.