RESIDENTS today voiced their security fears over a former nursing home which is to become a centre for mental health patients.

They say they have been kept in the dark over the exact nature of the facility.

Midlands-based Cambian Health Care Ltd have been renovating the former nursing home in Pleasington Close, Blackburn, to turn it into a 32-bed rehabilitation unit.

But residents say they are angry that renovation work has been taking place without any explanation about what the building was going to be used for.

Geoff Smalley, 62, of Pleasington Close, said: "We haven't been told what sort of people are going to be residing there. This is a very quiet close full of families with young children. How secure is this unit going to be?"

Today Saleem Asaria, managing director of Cambian Health Care, said people using the facility posed no risk at all.

He has also agreed to meet residents to put their minds at ease.

Because no alterations were being made to the exterior of the building, and the premises already had planning permission for residential use, no consultation was required.

Mr Smalley, added: "We are concerned that we could not find out was going on and were not consulted.

"I got in touch with the council but they said they had not received any planning applications. We have only just found out that it is going to be a home for people with mental health problems."

Resident Mary Brown said: "They are telling us these patients pose no risk and need little supervision but if that is the case why is the staff ratio two to one?"

Councillor Dave Harling, of Wensley Fold ward, said: "I think it is wrong that a private company can set up a facility like this without local people or the local authority consulted. We have all come up with questions about things we are really concerned about but we have no real answers."

Mr Asaria said: "The centre will have facilities for educating clients who are recovering from some sort of mental health problem and have forgotten their daily living skills or who have never had them in the first place.

"None of these clients pose any risk. They are people who are already living in the community and attending other education establishments - they are not coming from somewhere where they were locked up.

"They are people who have had various treatments for mental illness and have recovered but need rehabilitation to help them back into the community." Up to 70 people will be registered to work at the facility which is scheduled to be open by November.

Cambian Health Care have their administrative headquarters in London but most of their 200-strong workforce is based in the East and West Midlands.