THE term 'retirement village' conjures up images of a kind of Milton Keynes for pensioners. The schemes have bitterly divided public opinion in the USA and Australia, where they have been criticised for 'farming off' the elderly, but praised for providing a palatable solution to a spiralling social problem. Now local authorities in the UK struggling to cope with increasing numbers of elderly people on their books are looking to the controversial schemes. Plans to site one in Colne were scuppered last year after Housing Corporation bosses refused to fund it. But reporter THERESA ROBSON discovered that the first in East Lancashire might well be in neighbouring Ribble Valley, where the ageing population is way above the national average...and rising.

NINE out of ten local authorities are experiencing serious problems in letting sheltered accommodation.

Up to 50 per cent of such properties across the UK are standing empty and, as Ribble Valley Council housing committee chairman Margaret Sutcliffe pointed out: "Once the downward spiral starts, it's unstoppable."

Studies have revealed that older people don't like shared facilities or bedsitting rooms and 85 per cent of them want to stay in their own homes.

But their own homes are often not adapted to meet their needs and a health crisis can force them to move on.

Coun Sutcliffe said: "Older people want to choose where they live from a range of housing with care and support designed to meet their needs, but most local authorities don't have the cash to update their housing stock.

"Many of our elderly residents still live in three or four-bedroomed family homes that they can't afford to heat and where they are vulnerable to attack, yet they are reluctant to leave. At the same time we have families on our books that we are desperate to house.

"Old people in their own homes can be dependent on up to three visits a day from social services, because their accommodation just isn't suitable. "The cost to the taxpayer is colossal and the effect on the elderly person when the services are withdrawn due to cutbacks by cash-strapped councils can be devastating."

About 18 per cent of the UK population is over 60, but in the Ribble Valley the figure is 23 per cent.

Now Ribble Valley Council has launched a huge survey aimed at 50-somethings in an attempt to stave off future problems.

And housing chiefs in the borough are to meet representatives of the UK's first retirement village in Staffordshire to see if that is the way forward.

Hundreds of questionnaires have been sent to a cross-section of residents around the age of 50.

"We want to discover what housing requirements are likely to be 15 or 20 years from now. We don't want to end up with yet more accommodation that's no use.

"We want to know in what ways elderly people living in private accommodation would find sheltered housing more attractive. We would be neglecting our duty as a housing authority if we didn't look at future housing needs and made plans to meet them," said Coun Sutcliffe. Mention the term 'retirement village' and image-conscious councillors usually shuffle uncomfortably in their chairs.

Last year, a £5million scheme to turn the former Hartley Hospital site in Colne into a retirement village failed.

The village for the over-55s would have incorporated flats, shops and a social centre run by residents.

Housing Corporation bosses claimed the project would not meet the housing needs of the area and refused to fund it.

But recently a more modest scheme for the site proposed by Ribble Enterprises received the go-ahead.

Former Pendle councillor Tony Greaves, who was instrumental in the original plan for Hartley Hospital, said the scheme had been brilliant.

"Retirement villages offer great benefits to the elderly. They have community facilities, cooperative shops and social activities. Residents are able to live in a community environment and we were extremely disappointed when our scheme was refused Government funding," he said. Coun Sutcliffe said she was sold on the idea of retirement villages after visiting one in Australia.

"No-one likes the thought of farming old people out to custom-made villages, but the one I saw was set in parkland and was wonderful. It really changed my mind. It had all the facilities an elderly person could possibly have needed.

"There was independent housing right through to high dependency accommodation. I was very impressed," she said.

"We are going to have to make the best use of resources if we are to get to grips with the future housing needs of the elderly and, like it or not, retirement villages might be the way forward for East Lancashire," she added.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.