AN INQUIRY has been launched after two privately-run bail hostels opened in East Lancashire towns without a proper consultation with residents.

The Burnley and Nelson facilities accommodate offenders and suspects on bail and are operated by Essex-based ClearSprings on behalf of the Government.

But the towns' MPs, council leaders and council officers said they had not been made aware of the new hostels, the locations of which have not been made public.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) said they acknowledged that residents and councils in Burnley and Pendle had not been properly consulted.

This is despite Justice Secretary and Blackburn MP Jack Straw saying ClearSprings was required to consult with local authorities along with the police before opening facilities.

A MOJ spokesman said: "ClearSprings is under a contractual obligation to consult in areas where they are to open bail accommodation.

"Any reports that it has failed to do so will be investigated.

"Those in bail accommodation are innocent until proven guilty.

"Defendants who pose a risk to the public will continue to be held on remand."

The two hostels are among 150 across Britain managed by ClearSprings for the Ministry of Justice.

The hostels are often simply modified houses and accommodate defendants bailed by magistrates and offenders with home detention curfews.

Coun Gordon Birtwistle, leader of Burnley council, said: "I have heard nothing but I have had no complaints about it.

"Nobody is saying anything to me that is concerning. I have not had a phone call or a complaint."

Burnley MP Kitty Ussher, Pendle MP Gordon Prentice, and Pendle Council leader Alan Davies all said they had not heard about the bail hostels, but declined to comment further.

Neil Watson, Pendle Council's head of planning, said ClearSprings had not contacted the Town Hall over the hostel in Nelson.

Mr Straw said his Government department would listen to concerns from residents or councils over ClearSpring's consultation.

He said: "The bail hostels have to go somewhere and we have had one in Blackburn for a long time.

"ClearSprings have got a difficult job but we have had surprisingly few complaints about it."

A Lancashire police spokesman said it was a matter for the government.

The nationwide hostels were the subject of a House of Commons written question from the shadow justice secretary in January.

It revealed the locations were based on "offender patterns" across Britain and that the government paid ClearSprings £2.4m in the last six months of 2007 for managing the facilities.