OPPONENTS of a homeless hostel last night confronted councillors over a decision to locate the 36-bed facility in their community.

Cheshire West and Chester Council leader Mike Jones indicated people protesting outside HQ about the proposed homeless hub at Richmond Court in Boughton were wasting their time but reassured them the facility would be safe.

He told Chester’s Dee 106.3 radio station: “There are some extraordinary and bigoted claims being made about ‘I can’t walk my grandchild along the canal because there’s a homeless hostel’.”

“There’s a lot of party political stirring going on on this issue and it’s absolutely wrong because they are using homeless people as a political football and when you see the young children sitting on the opposite side of the road to the Grosvenor Museum, which is where the existing hostels are, it is safe and therefore to suggest it’s just about drunks and alcoholics and it’s unsafe is fundamentally wrong.”

He said a unanimously-backed motion by Labour Cllr David Robinson, who called for a proper consultation ‘before a decision is made’ on the location, would not be honoured.

This was because the council had entered into a legal process with providers Chester & District Housing Association and Forum Housing.

However, the council has agreed to consult residents on what services will be delivered from the centre and yesterday said it would provide detailed information on the decision-making processes that led to the choice of Richmond Court.

Asked to respond to claims that residents felt ‘cheated’, Cllr Jones said: “Well, they shouldn’t be cheated because I made it very clear at the council meeting that we have a procurement process, it is a legal process, we have picked a preferred supplier.

“We cannot go back on that because they would sue us, as a council, for hundreds of thousands of pounds potentially.”