FUTURE residents of several new care homes are helping link past and present by creating time capsules.

Durham County Council is moving elderly people from some of its existing residential homes to new extraCare housing schemes as part of an £18m overhaul of accommodation for older people.

The rearrangement involves closing 17 out of 25 of the council's residential homes and creating six new extraCare housing schemes in a joint initiative with private developers, MJ Gleeson and Hanover Housing Association.

The extraCare housing will include private flats with their own bathrooms and kitchens and communal facilities such as hairdressers. The residents will have 24-hour care, with the level of support adapted to residents' needs.

Those who will be moving into the new housing schemes have been working with historians, relatives, schools and staff from Durham County Council in putting together time capsules to bury under the new developments.

The capsules have been given to the site managers of the schemes, which are under construction in Brandon, near Durham, Seaham, Ouston, near Chester-le-Street, Barnard Castle, Spennymoor and Consett. The managers are responsible for burying the capsules at each site.