THE economic downturn has hit two projects designed to provide 21st century accommodation for vulnerable people.

Approved a year ago after more that two years of talks, the projects involve the Hainault home for adults with learning disablities and the nearby Homeleigh care home for the elderly.

The plan is to build a new elderly care home on the unused two-thirds of the Hainault site in Lesney Park Road, Erith, and a new learning disability unit on the rest of the site.

The project was to be financed by selling part of the Hainault site to build the new home for the elderly and use the proceeds to pay for the new unit for people with learning disabilities.

The eventual sale of the Homeleigh site in Avenue Road, for redevelopment, would then pay for the home for the elderly.

But the downturn in the housing market has meant the value of both sites has dropped.

This has hit the amount of funding available for the schemes, which will provide a 60-bed care home for the elderly, built and run by Kent Community Housing Trust (KCHT) and a 13-bed unit for people with learning disabilities, built and run by Maidstone Community Care Homes (MCCH).

Bexley Council owns the freehold of both sites.

To protect the projects from collapse, the council’s cabinet members agreed changes to the proposals last week, involving a land swap, which will make sure both homes will still be built.

Instead of having to buy the surplus land on the Hainault site, to build the new home for the elderly, Bexley will lease it for free to KCHT.

The council will also pay MCCH the agreed land value for the remaining third of the site.

This will enable MCCH to finance the building of its new13-bed unit for people with learning disabilities.

KCHT will save on the interest charges it would have paid on financing the purchase of its share of the Hainault site, while it builds the new home.

In return KCHT will give up its lease on the Homeleigh site, which the council will sell when the new home is complete and the market recovers.

Bexley will also pay the cost of protecting the empty Homeleigh site.

Its sale will finance the new home for the elderly, but if it does not produce enough cash to also pay for the MCCH unit, the council will pay the shortfall.

If it produces more than the cost of the new MCCH unit, Bexley will pocket the surplus.

Councillor Peter Catterall described the new arrangement as “complex but ingenious”.