HEALTH chiefs have been accused of breaking a promise to screen nearby gardens from a hospital site.

Householders claim bosses at the Royal Bolton are going back on a pledge to replace trees which once partly concealed their homes from the hospital site.

Residents in Cambridge Close, Farnworth, sent a petition to the town hall when an large air conditioning unit appeared on an education centre overlooking their back gardens.

At the height of the row last September, the hospital applied for planning permission for the unit and issued a statement claiming "regardless of the outcome, the Trust are taking several steps to meet the concerns of local residents".

The statement went on to give examples, including replacing a screen of deciduous trees - felled to deter vandals - with mature conifers.

The planning application was turned down and leading campaigner Carol Kay, who was angry about the felling, recently approached the hospital to find out when the conifers would be arriving.

She was angry to be told that planting was dependent on the outcome of the hospital's appeal against the refusal of the original planning application and a subsequent town hall enforcement notice ordering the unit to be removed.

A hospital spokesman said the trees would not be replaced unless permission for the unit was granted and argued that the situation had changed since the pledge was made.

He said: "If the inspector demands we move the unit, then there will be no reason to plant the trees because there will be nothing to screen."

"The statement was made to allay fears in regard to a particular planning application and in anticipation of a favourable response.

"Everybody thought we would win planning permission. Mrs Kay thought we would, a local councillor thought we would and we thought we would - otherwise that statement would not have been made.

"It needs to be viewed in context of all that has happened. That application has now been superceded by an appeal and an enforcement notice and I have written to Mrs Kay to clarify the situation."

He added: "These conifers cost about several thousand pounds each to import and need a high labour input. This is public money and I do not have a mandate to spend it where it is not applicable."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.