MENTAL health bosses have delayed making a decision on the site of a £37.5million mental health unit serving the whole of East Lancashire.

Lancashire Care NHS Trust, which administers psychiatric care across the county, cannot decide between Gib Hill, on the Colne and Nelson border, or Shuttleworth Mead, on green belt land in Burnley.

The trust is set to spend £150 million on four hospitals, one each for the East, North, Central and West Lancashire districts, to replace 15 old, smaller units.

Councillors and patients across Blackburn, Hyndburn and Burnley want the East Lancashire hospital to be built on Shuttleworth Mead, but the land's green belt status could stop the trust gaining planning permission.

Trust board members were told at their meeting today that Gib Hill was seen as the preferred site at the moment, because planning permission would be much easier.

They had been expected to make a final decision today, but investigations into Shuttleworth Mead are instead continuing.

The Gib Hill site is unpopular with local residents who say the building will destroy a rich ecological area, while Blackburn with Darwen Primary Care Trust, supported by councillors, is concerned that it is too far away from patients in Blackburn and Accrington.

Burnley Council leader Gordon Birtwistle said there seemed little chance of obtaining permission to build on the town's green belt land at Shuttleworth Mead.

He said: "It would have to be looked at on the basis of investment and employment in Burnley against saving green land from building, and it would be an issue for planners to investigate.

"But everyone up until now who has put in an inquiry about that land has been turned down, so the trust will struggle.

"We will have to see what our planning people think of it."

At the board meeting, Sam Jones, vice-chairman of the trust, said: "We have an urgent need to get these units built as soon as possible.

"In-patient facilities at the moment in many, many areas are totally inadequate and really we are not looking after mentally ill people in the way we should.

"Whilst we might not get the perfect site, we have one that is suitable, that we can move to, and for me that is the priority."