VILLAGERS are celebrating after plans to convert a nursing home into a hostel for asylum seekers were abandoned.

Durham City Council revealed that Gateshead-based G and J Houghton had withdrawn its planning application for the former Appletree Nursing Home at Meadowfield.

The application, lodged last summer, ran into fierce opposition and residents formed an action group to fight the plan.

The city council received 1,500 letters of objections from people worried that there would be an increase in crime and vandalism and a drop in house prices if the scheme in Frederick Street North went ahead.

Gilbert Thompson, action group secretary, said: "It is very good news. Everybody is quite happy because it was causing a lot of concern.

"It is a relief. It wasn't a question of there being asylum seekers or anyone else. It was a question of a hostel in an area like this. There are no facilities. It is just a village.

" The word hostel is frightening to people. It covers a multitude of things - it could a bail hostel or drug rehabilitation hostel."

A council spokeswoman said the application was lodged last August but had been withdrawn before it could be considered by councillors.

She added: "Appletree Nurs-ing Home was built as a nursing home for the elderly and could be re-used as a nursing or care home. At present the building is empty.''

The hostel would have provided short-term accommodation for up to 60, mainly single, people and would have been manned by a staff of ten at any one time. The company had agreed to sign an agreement ruling out the hostel's future use by drug addicts or sex offenders.