A renewed approval has been given for the design details of a 76-home retirement complex for Poundbury.

The 'extra care' scheme, over several blocks and including bungalow homes, will be built on the Crown Gate site in the north-east quarter running along the top edge of the Great Field and south of Poundbury Road.

The application was first granted in 2017 and was due to expire – but has now been renewed with some minor changes to some of the buildings.

The project is expected to create more than 50 full-time jobs once completed.

The complex includes 59 apartments and 17 bungalows, mainly one or two-bed, although the site will have a small number of three-bed homes.

The retirement community scheme is spread over nine blocks of between one and four storeys with a communal hub which will include a reception area, café/bistro, bar, servery, multipurpose activity room and a library and reading room. The application said the communal block will be open to local people as well as residents living on the site.

The scheme, which is available to people over the age of 60, is being created by Brio Retirement Living (Poundbury) Ltd.

Company documents say that their model for retirement living with care and support is a move away from the traditional care home and aims to maintain people's independence yet is able to offer 24-hour emergency cover with flexible care services, where needed, on a day to day basis.

Historic England had raised concerns about the scale of the development saying it would have an impact on the setting of nearby Poundbury Camp hillfort and the open rural area beyond that – but planning officers decided it would cause less than substantial harm when weighed against the benefits of the proposal.

Details of the scheme, which runs to more than a hundred pages, can be seen on the Dorset Council website by searching for 20/003168.