RESIDENTS claim they have been ignored by a church over plans to move a youth club close to their homes.

Locals on St James Green, in Thirsk, are angry over plans to move Thirsk Clock into a building just behind their homes.

The Thirsk Clock youth club is looking to re-locate from the Market Place into a building owned by the St James Green Methodist Church.

Angry locals accused the youth club of secrecy and the St James Green Residents’ Association was set up and it met Clock and church officials just before Christmas.

Jane Redfern, of the association, said: "At the public meeting the Rev Andy Bryer, of the church, offered the St James Green Residents’ Association the opportunity to speak to the church council.

"This was an opportunity to represent the views of more than 150 people living in the area who are strongly opposed to the proposed relocation.

"However the church council have refused to meet with our two spokesmen, ignoring our concerns and going ahead with the contract regardless."

Thirsk Clock began in 2003 and it is currently based in premises owned by the Nationwide building society and it wants the youth club out.

The building society feels youths meeting outside the Clock cause hassle for staff and shout abuse at them and customers.

St James Green locals feel the Clock’s problems will follow them to the new base where they will plague them.

Some of the elderly living near the proposed new base have said they would be too frightened to go out if the Clock moved there.

Laurence Job, of the residents’ group, said: "We do not object to the work of the Clock, in fact, many of us support this organisation’s objectives and the good work it seeks to achieve.

"We have no interest in demonising young people, especially those who use the Clock but we are realistic about the issues which surround this sort of project.

"We believe that this planned relocation will not achieve the objectives of the Thirsk Clock."

The residents want the Clock to work with Thirsk Police to locate another building that is not in a residential area that it can use.

Geoffrey Bruce, of the church council, said: "We are not ignoring them as we know what they think and we’ve taken it on board.

"We had a meeting of the council and it was asked if they wanted to hear the residents or the Clock put their cases again and they said no.

"We’ve not changed our minds about the request from the Clock and we are willing to go ahead with it.

"I think Rev Bryer was going to inform the residents’ group but I’m not sure if he has yet."

Thirsk Clock said it knew nothing of the new issues and still planned to move into the new premises if approval was given.