PATIENTS from a medium secure unit at a Whalley mental hospital are to be moved into houses on a main road just half a mile from villagers.

And a councillor is demanding assurances that people will not be at risk when 12 patients from the Chestnut Drive unit move into in former staff homes in Mitton Road, bordering the hospital grounds.

Calderstones NHS Trust Board plans to convert two houses in Queen Mary Terrace and Bridge Terrace.

The six-bedroomed properties would house patients awaiting release into the community. The first unit is expected to open within three months.

Hospital bosses said patients would have the opportunity of living away from the main core of the hospital in a more "home-like atmosphere."

Deputy chief executive Graham Jowett said: "We are talking about clients who are ready to move into the community. "It's not in our interests to move people into the community who aren't ready. Members of the public are certainly not at risk."

He stressed the scheme was to benefit patients, not hospital profits, though trust board members were told that the release of 12 places in Chestnut Drive would generate "considerable extra income for a small capital outlay."

But Whalley Coun Joyce Holgate said she would be seeking cast-iron assurances that villagers would not be at risk.

She said: "I have grave concerns. Are these patients going to include former sex offenders and people who have committed violent crimes?

"I don't want to see these patients just turfed out into the street. I want to know that the residents of Whalley aren't being put in any danger."

Dozens of houses at the site were ditched by workers during a fierce dispute four years ago when rents were tripled by the new trust management.

Mr Jowett said if the scheme proved successful, more homes could be turned over for use by patients.

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