MORE than a dozen people with learning disabilities will be moved from their seaside home at Milford to live in the community with full-time care staff.

A total of 13 service users live in the three joined bungalows on the cliff at Milford.

Now, as part of the government's care in the community scheme, they will move to supported living houses in the New Milton area.

The move will free up a prime seafront site with views to the Isle of Wight to the south, Hurst Spit shingle bank to the east and Christchurch Bay to Hengistbury Head and Old Harry Rocks to the west.

The site is between the White House, a listed building now converted to expensive apartments, and the upmarket Needles Point development.

Hampshire NHS Partnership Trust has now submitted outline plans for a dozen homes on the 1.09 acre site.

The plans show a terrace of four houses, a terrace of three, a pair of semi-detached homes and three detached houses.

The land will be sold with outline planning permission and help with funding for the running of the care in the community homes, to be provided by a housing association.

A Hampshire Partnership NHS Trust spokesman said the properties for the care in the community scheme had not yet been bought.

"There will be no more than four service users in the same house, but it will usually be two or three," said the spokesman.

Three dozen members of staff, including six agency employees, are currently employed at Ravenhurst.

Staff employed there would be redeployed as live-in carers and more staff would be taken on.