Hundreds of angry demonstrators are expected to join an emotionally-charged march today against controversial plans to build an £8 million mental home in North Benfleet.

The protesters are determined to show that feelings are still running high against the proposed nursing home in Pound Lane, which they claim will be used to house dangerous criminals.

Their fight is against Basildon Council, which passed the plans for the 54-bed medium secure development on the 16-acres site, which was formerly used as a tyre dump and storage for council gritting lorries.

The council, which gained Whitehall backing to permit the development on Green Belt land, now says it was duped into giving consent. Councillors claim they thought it was a nursing home for the elderly.

Karen Watts, of Bowers Gifford and North Benfleet Action Group, was contemptuous. She said: "The council should have found out what it was.

"If they were duped they have every ground for not letting the building go ahead. They have left themselves wide open. We are disgusted with the way they dealt with it."

Mrs Watts, a mother of three children aged six to 11, said at least 400 people were expected to join today's demo.

She said: "The council might have thought it had gone quiet, but it hasn't."

St Andrew's Hospital, Northampton, the charity behind the proposed home, insists it will be for mentally ill patients from the Essex area.

But Mrs Watts said: "They will not be people who have had nervous breakdowns. They will be criminals."

The protesters will leave the Benbow Club in Pound Lane at 10am and march to the site of the unit at Swaynes Farm.

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