RESIDENTS have been given a safety pledge after plans were submitted for a housing scheme for people with severe mental illness.

The scheme, at Rockmount, Pimlico Road, Clitheroe, will comprise five flats for single people or couples with long-term mental health problems, including schizophrenia.

Councillors in Grammar School ward, which includes Pimlico Road, have been briefed on the scheme in case of concern from residents.

But Ribble Valley Council housing committee chairman Charles Warkman said the unit would not house anyone considered a "high risk" and residents had nothing to fear.

The special unit will be owned by New Leaf Supporting Independence Ltd, formerly the North British Housing Association, and managed by Making Space, a Warrington-based charity which supports schizophrenics and the severely mentally-ill with their carers in housing schemes throughout the North.

The matter first came before the Ribble Valley Council's Housing Committee last June, when a steering group was formed to oversee the project.

The committee heard this week that after several setbacks the project had finally got off the ground.

The council's housing manager Christine Grimshaw said: "The most important issue for the steering group was to find a suitable site for the development, which proved extremely demanding.

"While it has been difficult to progress this project, the group is confident that the scheme at Rockmount, for which a planning application is currently being submitted, will be a welcome addition to supported housing provision in the Ribble Valley."

The meeting heard tenancies at Rockmount would be open to Ribble Valley residents with severe and enduring mental illness. A New Leaf spokesman told councillors: "All tenants will be carefully selected according to Making Space's lettings policy, which excludes anyone who presents undue risk.

"Tenants are expected to come from a mix of housing backgrounds, but the scheme is not intended for the resettlement of patients from long-stay hospitals. Applicants will be expected to be broadly capable of independent living, such as shopping, cooking, cleaning, budgeting and self-medicating, albeit with support in some respects."

A caretaker is likely to live on-site and be available to tenants during evenings, weekends and overnight, with a non-resident support worker visiting the tenants on a daily basis.

Housing Committee chairman Charles Warkman said: "We have had a long-standing wish to support a project of this nature and have been looking for a suitable property for some time.

"There will be no high risk people living at the unit and we have consulted ward councillors, who have raised no objections."

Ward councillor Howel Jones said he had received no complaints from residents and the matter would be discussed fully at a forthcoming meeting of the council's planning committee