SCOTTISH Secretary Donald Dewar could be forced to settle a growing row over the location of a new secure unit for potentially dangerous psychiatric patients.
Greater Glasgow Community and Mental Health Services Trust yesterday named Stobhill Hospital and Ruchill Hospital as preferred options to locate the unit, but face a battle to get acceptance for either site.
Public opposition at council planning level could result in a public inquiry and adjudication by the Secretary of State.
The #10m unit will accommodate and treat up to 76 patients who have offended, or are at risk of offending, because of a mental health problem.
They will include people currently in the community or in other hospitals, people referred from the courts, and patients detained inappropriately in prison or in the State Hospital at Carstairs - where the level of security exceeds their needs - but have nowhere else to go.
Dr Linda Watt, the medical director, said that of the two their preference was for Stobhill.
It met the need to be linked to other psychiatry services and to other clinical services, and offered enough land for secure gardens and recreational areas.
The unit will employ around 230 staff and will have a range of security measures including perimeter fencing, locked doors, closed circuit cameras, and routine searches of buildings.
''We anticipate panic wherever we put this - there will be public concern and we will have to deal with that,'' said Dr Watt. ''Improving safety is best achieved by improving the care and treatment of this group of people.''
Plans are already well advanced by the Stobhill trust to build a new #40m ambulatory care centre on their vacant, greenfield site incorporating out-patient, casualty, diagnostic, and other services.
Anne Hawkins, depute chief executive of the Community and Mental Health Trust, said the unit, with space for a football pitch, would take up 12.5 acres of the 14-acre site.
A spokesman for the Stobhill Trust said: ''We have not received any details of the proposal, but at this stage it looks as if it might not be practicable.''
There was also opposition to the alternative site at Ruchill, where there has been interest from housing developers in the hospital and the surrounding area.
Councillor Janet Andrews said: ''A lot of work has gone into trying to regenerate this area and I would not like to see it all go for nothing.''
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