THE council could create homes for older people on Lowfield Green - after no private company wanted to build a nursing home on the plot.

City of York Council’s development plans for 165 new homes to be built on the former Lowfield School site in Acomb included a nursing home.

And the local authority asked developers and care home companies to bid to built and run the nursing home. But no suitable bids were made.

A council meeting heard that the authority may now develop the site itself - building homes where older people can live independently but with extra support instead of creating a nursing home - and that they may bring the land into the city’s housing delivery programme.

Vicky Japes, head of the council’s older persons’ accommodation programme, told councillors: "The previous procurement exercise was to encourage someone to come and build an 80-ish bed care home, and for us to buy 25 of those at the council’s cost of care rate.

“That failed to get any viable bids, but at the same time we have had a shift towards supporting independent living.

“This would be specialist older people’s accommodation - so it’s exempt from right to buy.”

She said the plans could see the council build 60 to 65 homes for assisted independent living at the site.

Cllr Paul Doughty, chair of the health scrutiny committee, said that following extensive consultation with residents about the plans for a nursing home on Lowfield Green it is important to consider their responses.

He added: “We have been debating what sort of accommodation should be built on this site for years.

“The main desire for the site - which was the older people’s accommodation - has now completely changed from what we envisioned previously.

“We need to provide something positive from this site for older residents in this city.”

Sharon Houlden, the council’s director for health, said: “It’s absolutely the case that the market is moving and shifting.

“We went out to a procurement which previously we would have believed was a sound measure - nobody was willing to come forward and provide what we originally thought would happen.

“We don’t actually see care homes and institutional care as being the answer in terms of the best quality of life that we can give people.”

She added that older people want to live in their own homes for as long as possible and assisted living schemes and new technology can help them do that.

The 80-bed care home was due to be a key part of the Lowfield Green scheme and was to be built on one side of a new village green.

The council invited developers and care home operators to bid to work on and run the new nursing home in 2019.

Work is already taking place on building new homes at the former Lowfield School site.