The UK's first dementia village is expected to open in the autumn.

It will be for 30 people and will also fill a set of houses that were blighted by arson attacks while empty.

Harmonia Village, at Randolph Road, Dover, will have six houses, each with five residents supported by nursing home-type care.

There will be a community hub with a café and space for activities, which will also be open to the local community.

There will also be a guest house with six bedrooms, fully equipped for people who have dementia, so they and their friends and family can have a break together.

The scheme is by East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust.

Dr Philip Brighton, Trust consultant geriatrician, said: “At the Harmonia Village every person will be supported to live as independently as possible and continue to enjoy what is important to them.

“The village is an opportunity to do something different to support people living with dementia that complements existing services.

“We are working with people living with dementia, their families, community organisations, charities and health and social care staff workers to find out their experiences of dementia and how the village can help.”

Building work started last November for the project, which has been costed at almost £3.5 million.

It has been paid for with European funding matched with money from the NHS and Kent County Council.

Some of 12 empty houses, behind Buckland Hospital, had seen a series of arson attacks while empty.

That happened three times in 2017, with one property torched each time.

The worst incident was in August that year when flames rose from the ground floor of a house a through the roof.

East Kent Hospitals secured the building with metal shutters to keep out vandals and squatters.

It had been part of a pattern of setting fire to disused premises in the area, including on the former Buckland Hospital site.

In 2015 there were 850,000 people living with dementia in the UK and by 2025 it is estimated that this will have grown to nearly 1,150,000.

Dementia now costs the UK economy £26.3 billion a year.

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