A SPECIAL "task force" has been set up to fight plans for a controversial homeless centre.

The Clifton Residents' Association and Grosvenor Terrace Residents' Association have formed a joint committee to oppose plans to relocate the Arc Light Centre to the old Shipton Street School site in York.

Residents say it is the wrong place for the 24-hour homeless centre, which is leaving its current Leeman Road premises. More than 2,000 people have already signed a petition demanding the plans be dropped, and at a meeting yesterday afternoon, they stepped up the fight.

About 45 people met at Burton Stone Community Centre to discuss the proposals, and agreed to set up a joint committee to form a "battle plan".

In an often stormy meeting, residents said while they were not opposed to the Arc Light Centre, Shipton Street School was the wrong site. Residents said there were already problems with drug use, alcoholism and antisocial behaviour in the area, and felt the Arc Light Centre would only worsen things.

One speaker, Yvonne Calpin, of Bootham Crescent, said her son had been on the verge of selling his house until the buyer pulled out.

Mrs Calpin said: "They were within days of signing it when they found out about Arc Light, took advice and withdrew. When they say they are helping all the other people, fair enough - but who's going to help my son?"

Barney Skrentny, chairman of the Grosvenor Terrace Residents' Association, said it would be a further strain on the community.

"We are very fragile," he said. "We are trying our best to get our community back on our feet and we have made some wonderful progress. We have got to say to them that we support the ideals of Arc Light, but we do not feel that they can bring them into such a fragile community."

Vin Davis, of Grosvenor Terrace Residents' Association, said: "You do not put people who are already unstable into an unstable community. You do not put petrol on fire."

Ernest Holmes said: "I am 76 years old, and am an ex-rugby player, so I can defend myself. But I daren't, because of what the police would do. This would make it even worse."

But resident Dave Nicholson said the argument should not be based on self-interest. He said Clifton was already an area of "significant social deprivation," adding: "The thrust of our argument has to be the inappropriateness of where it is."

Helen Douglas, secretary of Clifton Residents' Association, said: "The massive regeneration this place has had is fantastic. We've got to keep going forward and keep making a better community for our kids, and I do not think Arc Light is going to help when we have got our own problems."

Resident Marjory Sharp urged people to attend an exhibition to illustrate Arc Light's work which will be held in St Luke's Church, on August 16, from 4.30pm.

Updated: 10:18 Tuesday, August 02, 2005