ELEVEN central and eastern Wheatbelt shires may benefit from a $60 million plan considering building 200 homes within six years.
The Central East Aged Care Alliance, in partnership with the Wheatbelt Development Commission and Regional Development Australia Wheatbelt, appointed independent consultants AURA Urban and Regional Alliance Pty Ltd last year to develop a business case for the proposal.
Their final draft is due for completion in June.
The alliance comprises the Merredin, Koorda, Mt Marshall, Mukinbudin, Trayning, Nungarin, Bruce Rock, Kellerberrin, Wyalkatchem, Westonia and Yilgarn shires.
Merredin Shire chief executive officer Geoff Powell said the business case carried on from an earlier report that looked broadly at aged care issues throughout the region.
"This report has focused on one specific aspect that local government can contribute to and control, and that is the provision of independent living units for ageing and elderly people," Mr Powell said.
"This is because housing stock is not suitable, and some of the joint venture arrangements that are in place, primarily with the Department of Housing, don't allow certain individuals access.
"These joint ventures are usually means-tested and some people can't fit under those caps."
Mr Powell said compiling the business case would help identify what would be the funding opportunities for realising the plan.
"How we are going to fund this is yet to be determined, but it is envisioned it will be a combination of Commonwealth, State, private sector and local government funding," he said.
"We have been in touch with both State and Commonwealth Governments (and) by having this business plan in place, I would expect to see a lobbying process in place leading up to the next State Budget."
Mr Powell said the timeframe for the roll out was subject to funding availability, but expected the project to start as early as 2016.
He said although there had been no confirmed interest from private investors, some groups had embarked on similar developments in the past.
The project would involve transportable and standard homes, with the roll out to occur gradually across all shires.
"There might be more certainty if we look at the transportable approach rather than trying to build them from scratch on the ground," he said.
"But that might vary across the 11 shires, some of them may have the capacity to do one or the other, or both."
Mr Powell said the project would deliver significant economic and social benefits to towns.
"What is happening is that once people retire off farms they usually head to the coast whether they want to or not," he said.
"People tend to relocate away from the towns and that has a dislocation effect on families, and it puts an impost on families who have to travel to look after people.
"We think it would be beneficial if we could provide some suitable accommodation to allow people to stay in their own communities."
Mr Powell said homes would not be aged care facilities.
"Local government does not have the capacity at this time to undertake the care component," he said.
"That is still in the province of the State Government.
"But what local government can do is build houses, and that is what we are intending to do, so people can buy into these houses while they are still hale and hearty.
"They still live in the same way as they would live anywhere else but they will be more convenient because they'll be smaller.
"They will be built and equipped to standards that will allow people to stay in them longer, and if they want to lock them up and leave it while going on holidays for six months they will be able to do that."
