Mental health unit granted - again

Pennines Township Planning Sub Committee granted the application Rochdale Town Hall last night (Wednesday 3 June)

A quashed planning application to build a mental health unit close to an aggrieved residential area has once again been given the green light.

Residents have slammed the development, which will be opened on Union Road, Birch Hill Hospital, as a “gross invasion of privacy”, and claim the mentally ill patients will make the area unsafe for their children to play.

But Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust told the Pennines Township Sub Committee last night (Wednesday 3 June) that the building will house “vulnerable, not dangerous” patients who are in desperate need of care.

Spokeswoman Katy Thomas said: “This development plays a key part in the high quality mental health care which we provide for our patients.

“Some of them are recovering from a long-standing illness, but they do not pose a threat to local people.”

Fears grew among residents that the building will overlook people’s gardens, but the steel mesh windows are to be frosted both inside and out.

A local man, known as Tony, who lives on Fleming Close said: “This development, even with angled windows, is a gross invasion of privacy.

“Residents have young and teenage children and there is no guarantee that these patients are not on the Sex Offenders Register.”

Councillor Robert Clegg, who voted in favour of the unit, said: “This is a hospital site, and has always been a hospital site. It has been looking after mental health patients since the 1970s.

“Mental health patients should not face a stigma around paedophiles and such things.”

He added: “We have had an appropriate application and the objections have been answered adequately.”

Councillor Ashley Dearnley said: “I am not against the mental health unit, that is not the issue.

“This is a planning issue, and the building is far too big for the site. If this was a housing application, we would not be granting it.”

The granted application is for a unit of 45 beds, which will open in August 2010.