WORRIED residents have renewed their protest over the building of flats for people with long-term mental health problems.

Father-of-three Stuart Halstead says families will live in fear when people with mental health disorders, including schizophrenia, move into the development at Highfield Street, off Grane Road, Haslingden.

Rossendale Borough Council has granted planning permission for West Pennine Housing Association to build eight one-bedroomed flats, to be managed by mental health charity Making Space.

But Mr Halstead and local residents are still hoping for a re-think because of local opposition.

Mr Halstead, of Grane Road, said: "I am not prepared to let them move people in who are a threat to my family. I don't feel we should have to live in fear."

He has sent the council newspaper cuttings of a court case about a schizophrenic who flung a hot cup of tea in the face of a fellow patient in a care home, and another schizophrenic who made a threat to kill.

Mr Halstead said Making Space had acknowledged at a public meeting they could not force a resident to take medication, only recommend that they did. He added that he had also been given an assurance that Making Space would only be a phone call away should any problem arise, but had got an answer machine when he phoned the charity on January 2.

Dave Matthews, from Making Space, said tenants would be carefully selected through detailed assessment, helped by the local health authority and social services.

He added: "We are confident we will select people who are appropriate for the scheme and exclude anyone adjudged to be a danger to other tenants or the general public."

Mr Matthews stressed that the tenants, both men and women, would be local people already living in the community in Rossendale, not patients being resettled from long-stay hospitals.

There would be a live-in resident caretaker, and a tenant support worker based in an office at the site, in addition to tenants receiving individual support from various agencies.

Mr Matthews said: "I'm concerned we give the tenants a chance to establish themselves in the community."

When the scheme was running in about eight months time, anybody who had a concern should be able to contact a member of staff at the scheme.

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