PLANS for a children's care home was opposed at a public meeting at Churchstoke last week.

Churchstoke Community Council has also voted unanimously to strongly object to the application and a group of residents held a productive meeting with the Montgomeryshire MP Glyn Davies at his offices last Friday.

They were able to discuss the application with him and were told he is going to look into their concerns.

Powys County Council planners say the closing date for consultations is June 10 and it is too early to say whether the application will be considered under delegated powers or by the planning committee.

Around 30 residents turned up to the Churchstoke meeting, roughly half the population of White Gritt, near to Corndon Manor where Children4Care have applied for planning permission to covert it into a care home to accommodate five young persons and two carers.

Corndon Manor is situated between the Marsh Cottage junction at Hyssington Marsh and the Shop House junction Minsterley.

Objectors' concern is that this is the wrong sort of venture for the deeply rural area and residents are also concerned that none of the properties in the area are connected to a main sewers despite claims in the planning application that there is a main sewer available.

The application has been made by a Miss Bethan Davies and plans indicate the Manchester-based company called Care4Children are behind the application. They describe themselves as helping "the most traumatised children and young people’ and "prepared for the most difficult of challenges and we work with high acuity children who Local Authorities find most difficult to place."

Residents have sought further clarification about the proposals but Paul Swain and Sarah Brown said: “We are really concerned about this application as we have a young family and live in a beautiful, safe area. However we have very few local services and single track roads leading to the property which make it a very poor location for the siting of a home such as this”.

The residents group said whilst all have sympathy for children in care, it was felt that the additional traffic on very narrow lanes and other issues will have an adverse effect on the local area and its residents and put additional pressure on already stretched local services.