CONTROVERSIAL plans for a £6m secure unit for mental patients on the former Pindar Oaks Hospital site are set to go ahead this summer.

The building, which will have a 17-foot perimeter fence, will house 32 low to medium risk patients from within a 50-mile radius.

Developers Headwind obtained permission to build on Pindar Oaks after a public inquiry three years ago, but work has been delayed until July or August this year.

Headwind northern managing director Paul Constable said the time had been spent working on the design and infrastructure.

“It’s a five to six million pound development and we want to make sure that we get it right.

“I think we recognise that it will cause a certain degree of anxiety and questions to be asked, but we've done a lot of consultation to reassure people living there that it will have zero impact on their lives.”

He added that Headwind would be working closely with Persimmon, which obtained planning permission for 200 houses on the neighbouring Stagecoach depot site last week.

Pindar Oaks is scheduled to be finished by summer 2008, when it will employ 100 to 150 staff, many of whom could be hired locally.

The plans have been opposed from the start by nearby residents, however, who fear the unit will have a negative impact on the area.

Arthur Mitchell, chair of the Doncaster, Sheffield and Cemetery Road Residents’ association, likened the scheme to ‘the sword of Damocles’. and said it was a great disappointment that it was going ahead.

“It’s a tragedy. We thought they would've sold it off and built houses.

“There’s nowt we can do about it because it was a passed at a public inquiry, so there’s no point in protesting. We'll just have to wait and see.

“I think it’s going to be terrible for people with houses up there.”