WORK has started on a £34m retirement village in a Teesside town.

The Hartfields extra care retirement community, in Hartlepool, is one of the country's biggest developments specifically for older people.

It will have 214 apartments and 28 bungalows, all designed for people in later life.

Central to the scheme will be a covered village street, complete with healthy living centre, restaurant and coffee bar, shop, hairdressers, lounge, IT facilities and craft room.

The development will also feature landscaped grounds, a village square and a village green.

The Mayor of Hartlepool, Stuart Drummond, will mark the start of building work by planting a tree at the site at noon tomorrow.

Hartfields is being developed by the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust (JRHT), in partnership with Hartlepool Borough Council, Hartlepool Primary Care Trust, and North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust.

John Kennedy, the JRHT's director of care services, said: "Hartfields is an exciting opportunity to create a supportive community in Hartlepool.

"Building on the lessons learnt from Hartrigg Oaks, our retirement village in York, and from other developments around the country, we are aiming to provide an exemplary scheme of which the people of Hartlepool can be extremely proud."

Hartlepool council's adult and community services department and the local primary care trust plan to base community outreach teams in the day centre to be built in the village.

The scheme has received backing worth £9.8m from the Government's Extra Care Housing Fund, and £0.7m from the Housing Corporation.

The first residents are to move in during spring 2008 and the scheme will be completed 12 months later.

The JRHT has already had a large number of enquiries from local people who are interested in Hartfields and will be writing to them in due course with an update of the timetable for development.

Anyone else wanting to register interest in the scheme should call (01904) 752227.