A PENDLE beauty spot is the proposed site for East Lancashire's new £35m mental health unit.

Lancashire Care NHS Trust, which runs psychiatric care across the county, is planning to build four central units for adults with mental health problems in a £150 million investment to replace 15 smaller units.

At the trust board meeting on Thursday, members will be told that, after public consultation, Gib Hill on the Nelson and Colne border is the preferred site for the new centre to cover East Lancashire.

But bosses will still try to negotiate planning permission to build on Shuttleworth Mead in Padiham as an alternative.

Each of the four new super-hospitals will cater for around 200 patients, but with private rooms and better facilities.

The Trust has not yet publicised what type of patients would be treated there, but it is understood that the units will take those with serious, long-term mental health problems.

Campaign group RAGE (Residents Against Gib Hill Exploitation), which has battled a number of planning applications to keep the Pendle Council-owned land free of development, said they would fight planning permission for the site.

Former council leader and group member Azhar Ali said: "This really is a kick in the teeth for everyone fighting to preserve the only real green land between Nelson and Colne for future generations.

"We are not opposed to the idea of a psychiatric hospital, but surely there is other suitable land in Pendle, Burnley or Blackburn.

"We will fight this all the way, and the first step will be to object as strongly as possible when the development comes to the planning committee."

Blackburn with Darwen Council's health scrutiny boss said the change would mean vulnerable patients from Blackburn, Darwen, Hyndburn and the Ribble Valley, being "cut off from their families".

Coun Roy Davies, chairman of the Blackburn with Darwen health scrutiny committee, said all the suggested sites, which had included Burnley General Hospital, Reedley Hallow in Fence and Regent street in Colne, were more than an hour from some parts of the area by public transport.

He called on the trust board to reconsider facilities in Blackburn and ensure that free or low-cost regular transport was provided for families.

He said: "Inpatient care is always a last resort for mental health because the professionals realise that the best thing for most patients is to be with their families.

"Once someone is in such a bad state that they are in hospital, surely it becomes even more important for the family to be able to visit as often as possible because the people who love the patient are the ones who will be able to spot the signs first if there is any change.

"When I went to the consultation meetings the only answer I could get about transport was vague promises that it would all be OK, but we need something better than that."

The care trust board will meet on Thursday at the Globe Centre, Accrington, at 11.30am.