FORMER hostage Terry Waite came to Burnley yesterday to launch a new £3million homeless shelter — and insisted it would be a boost to the local community.

The Emmaus shelter will open on the site of the Booth Court old people’s home, Old Hall Street, Daneshouse, which is due to close.

It will operate from empty shop buildings until Booth Court closes and will cater for around 30 homeless people, who will work full time collecting and reselling donated furniture. The money raised will support the centre but organisers are hoping to raise a further £2million, possibly through lottery grants, to add to the £1million government grant it was given a year ago.

Mr Waite, who was freed in 1991 after 1,073 days hostage in Beirut, is the national president of the Emmaus charity, which was first founded in France in the 1940s and now runs 17 “communities” across the UK.

Speaking at the Parish Church, Church Street, he said his time in captivity had helped him associate with the plight of homeless people.

He said: “They were not easy years, but I always used to tell myself ‘there are many people worse off than you’.

“It can be very difficult getting back into society.”

He added: “I look forward to coming back to the town when you have a thriving Emmaus community”.

He insisted the local project, which will eventually be a split site with an as-yet unnamed building, would benefit the local community and urged residents to get behind the scheme.