PROTESTS have been lodged over controversial plans to create a medium security hospital unit for mentally-ill patients in the region.

Partnerships in Care has applied to convert the former Royal Navy communications centre at HMS Forest Moor, between Harrogate and Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire, into the unit.

Council planners are recommending approval, but the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty committee said it should be refused because of the impact on the nationally important landscape.

The scheme, which has already sparked a stormy public meeting in Darley, has attracted 207 letters of objections.

Groups objecting to the proposal include Menwith with Darley Parish Council, the Nidderdale Society, Little Treasures Day Nursery in Darley, Harrogate and Nidderdale Scouts and a 200-strong residents' association.

Harrogate Borough Council planning officer Mark Williams, who is recommending approval of the scheme when members meet next Tuesday, says it represents appropriate use of the site and is in line with planning policies.

A report to the area planning committee says it is possible that the unit could house people who are on the Sex Offenders Register as a result of their mental state. But patients would not be accepted if they were considered to pose a public threat.

The report says early objections were based on misunderstanding that the unit would house sex offenders and paedophiles.

But the applicants, based at Royston, Hertfordshire, who run a similar hospital at Stockton-on-Forest, near York, said they would not take patients posing a seriously grave or immediate threat to the public.

The proposal is for patients capable of being rehabilitated back into their own community.