A NEW housing scheme for the elderly will open this summer.

The Hill View Manor development, Knaresborough, will provide 40 apartments.

The scheme is among efforts by North Yorkshire County Council's social services to get away from traditional residential care homes.

Instead, elderly people will live independent lives in their own self-contained apartments, but with 24-hour care on their doorsteps throughout the year.

The £3.5m project brings together the county and district council and the Hanover Housing Association. The apartments will have a kitch-en, walk-in shower room and toilet, bedroom and lounge.

Assisted technology is being piloted in the apartments to allow frail and elderly people to live as independent a life as possible.

This includes: water level detectors to prevent flooding; gas detectors; and pressure pad beds which detect when tenants get up in the night and automatically switch the lights on.

There will also be remote call alarms, intercoms and camera entry systems, plus an array of communal facilities including lounge, cafe, hair salon and shop.

The county's executive member for social services, Councillor Murray Naylor, said: "Extra care is very much the way forward in North Yorkshire.

"It provides the very best care of a residential home, but with the added dignity, privacy and independence of a private flat.

"No matter how good our residential homes are, given the choice, most people prefer to live their own lives in their own homes. Extra care provides the very best of both worlds, is a superb concept and a model of future care across North Yorkshire."

Hill View Manor is part of a multi-million pound programme planned in the county. Similar projects are in the pipeline in Ripon, Stokesley and Bainbridge.