RESIDENTS are gearing themselves up for a new fight to stop a drug and alcohol rehabilitation hostel being built on their doorstep.

People living on Benson Street, in Ulverston, launched a campaign to prevent house number three from being converted in a hostel and believed the battle had been won when the owner took the house off the market.

But this week they learned that Workington-based Impact Housing now plans to buy a house just three doors away - number seven to turn it into a hostel for six recovering drug and alcohol addicts.

The hostel will be run by the charity, Turning Point, and will be staffed 24-hours a day.

Residents launched a campaign against the original application and organised a petition that was signed by 150 people in the town. They claimed they had not been consulted.

Director of operations for Impact Housing, Keith Dobson, said the organisation had learned from the issues raised by neighbours last time and would carry out a full consultation process over the latest scheme.

Benson Street resident Wendy Moore, who will live next door to the proposed hostel, said she had received a letter from Impact Housing last Thursday informing her of its plans.

"In an ideal world I wouldn't want a rehabilitation hostel right next door to me, but we don't live in an ideal world. What angered us last time was that the scheme was being done through the back door and we weren't informed about what was going on.

"This time we are being consulted and if we are given the information then we will have time to process it," she said.

A survey by the South Lakes and Barrow Drug Reference Group prompted the application after more than 20 people in the area were considered to be in need of help.

April 17, 2003 16:30