ANGRY Crowcombe Heathfield residents were planning to lobby councillors today in a bid to scotch plans for a hostel for young single mothers in the village.

They say West Somerset District Council planning officials are riding roughshod over objections to the proposal.

Restcare Services, which also has care homes at Stockland Bristol and Burnham, wants to turn the former Denzel House youth hostel into a residential family centre.

An application for change of use, which has been recommended for approval by planning officials, was to be considered at today's planning meeting.

As the County Gazette went to press, pensioner Geoff Thomas, who has lived in the village with his wife Ann for 30 years, said: "We are an isolated community of mainly elderly people and this plan causes us great fear and trepidation.

"We don't understand why we are having this hostel foisted upon us when there have been so many objections."

Richard Cooper, who retired 15 years ago to the house in the village where he was born, said local householders feared a rise in crime if permission was given for the hostel to go ahead.

He said: "There are no facilities for miles.

"Goodness knows what these young people, mostly from inner city areas, might get up to."

"Some of us have visited similar hostels in other areas, and they can be unsavoury places, with police being called several times a month," he said.

Crowcombe parish council has objected to the plans on the grounds of resident's concern for personal security, and police district commander, Supt John Snell, has said emergency response times could be jeopardised by increased demand if the hostel goes ahead.

Schools from as far away as Essex and Surrey have also objected to the loss of field courses run at the premises by local teaching organisation Affordable Fieldwork, which coaches visiting geography students.

Denzel House was a youth hostel for 60 years before the Youth Hostel Association decided to sell it last year.

A Social Services spokesman said in a submission to the planning committee the likely use of the hostel would be as a mother and baby home' with residents placed on the direction of a court.

Placements would cost between £3,000 and £4,000 a week, split between social services and the courts.

Assessments would form the basis for reports to the courts as to whether a mother continued to parent her children.

A spokesman for the Care Standards Commission Inspectorate confirmed it was in the process of registering Restcare Services in the Taunton area, adding: "We would not expect residents to be excluded because of a history of mental illness or criminal convictions."