PEOPLE are being invited to have their say about a reorganisation of County Durham's old people's homes.

Under Durham County Council modernisation plans 16 homes will be closed and and extra-care homes built. Geater efforts will be made to care for pensioners in their own homes.

Legal challenges by the relatives of homes at Barnard Castle and Leadgate have so failed to stop the programme.

The Durham branch of Unison, the public sector union, which is concerned about the move, is holding a public meeting tonight in Durham City's Town Hall, Market Place, at 7pm.

Called The Crisis in Public Residential Care Homes in County Durham, speakers are expected to include social services director Peter Kemp, a leading consultant geriatrician, a human rights lawyer and Mark Oley, an advocate with the group Rage, which has worked with relatives on the legal challenges to the county council's plans.

The union says the meeting will feature a question forum and will give people the chance to have their say about the community.

The council, which has also been criticised about school closure plans and a proposed pay rise for its councillors, said its care home reorganisation could be an award-winner.

The £2.2m extra care home at Southfield Lodge, Crook, which was built before the full plan was announced, is a finalist in the 2003 Health and Social Care Awards.

The council said it wanted to move away from the "institutional environment'' of residential care and allow elderly people to live independently for longer.