FURIOUS residents took to the streets this week to stop a unit for convicted paedophiles opening next to a school and disabled children's centre.

Outraged parents have been gathering at the site in Holloway Hill, Chertsey since Home Office plans to move the Wolvercote Clinic, a secure residential unit for adult sex offenders, to former nurses's facility Silverlands, were leaked.

Mark Snelling, whose four-year-old daughter attends Lyne and Longcross Primary School, which backs onto the grounds of Silverlands, was among the first to begin picketing the site.

The 36-year-old Almners Road resident said: "I have never campaigned or protested in my life. I am just an ordinary man but I am so incensed about this ludicrous proposal that I am prepared to do whatever it takes to stop it going ahead.

"The most absurd thing is the location. There are five schools within a half-mile radius of Silverlands and now they want to put a load of paedophiles slam bang in the middle of an area heavily populated with kids."

His disbelief is shared by furious Runnymede councillors and top-level officers from Surrey Police who insist they were kept completely in the dark about the re-location plans.

On Friday last week they met with Eithne Wallis, national director of the Probation Service, to learn first-hand of the department's attempt to approve the move without any form of public consultation.

Foxhills ward councillor Frances Barden attended and said it was a complete farce: "I found out that a decision had been made on this as far back as May without consultation," she said.

"With their failure before and after this meeting to give the facts in full, I am very hesitant to believe their presentation. In fact, I came away with a feeling of distrust and disbelief."

She added: "I feel we the public have been hoodwinked and kept in the dark. If this had not been leaked, it would most probably have gone ahead behind closed doors and we would have found out too late to fight it."

Phillip Hammond, Runnymede and Weybridge MP, was equally livid. He said: "It's just been an arbitrary decision made behind closed doors by bureaucrats.

"There has been by the Home Office's own admission no consultation whatsoever this whole decision was taken behind closed doors without any consideration at all of what implications it could have for residents."

A Home Office spokeswoman admitted that although preliminary work had begun at Silverlands, which includes the erection of a seven foot fence with razor wire and a special security gate, it has now put the move on hold.

She said: "Although some aspects of the relocation of Wolvercote are relatively advanced, ministers feel that local views have not been properly aired.

"Ministers have therefore instructed a review of all other available options before proceeding further."

However, Mr Hammond said after irrevocably severing the public's trust, the Chertsey community will have little confidence that their views will have any impact on the final decision.

He said: "A lot of people believe this is just a temporary reprieve and are worried that even if a consultation does happen now it will just be for show."

By.Sherelle Folkes