THE owners of a company applying for permission to transform a Rishton terrace house into a care home for children have reassured the local residents there is nothing to worry about.

Radcliffe-based Unlimited Care Ltd have applied for permission to change the house on Lord Street to a residential home for two children.

The plans have to be debated by the council's planning committee before a decision will be made but householders on the street are objecting to the idea, and have written letters to the council, claiming their street is no place for such a facility.

However, the owner of the firm has said the facility will be high quality, and manned around the clock.

Lord Street resident Bob Sinton said: "It's a two-up two-down terrace house with no space for parking. We just don't think it's a suitable place. That is what we are objecting to first and foremost.

"This is a long street but it's split in half. Our half has got 14 houses, and I have already taken 10 letters of objection. Nobody wants it."

Similar applications have recently been passed by Hyndburn Council's planning committee. Earlier this year, plans to turn a home on Whalley Road, Accrington, into a home for children with learning difficulties was approved.

That house is to be used to home three children, and residents objected to the plans, fearing for the security of the area.

But planning chiefs welcomed the move, and said such a home would allow children to live a normal life.

Residents have also raised fears about similar plans for Moss Street, Great Harwood.

Tony Capewell, proprietor of Unlimited Care Ltd, said: "We are creating a loving environment that the children may have never had. The residents have got nothing to worry about in any way whatsoever.

"It is nothing out of the ordinary. What we are doing is taking on children that haven't had any love or attention and that is exactly what they are going

to get."