CRUNCH meetings about a controversial plannned hostel for ex-offenders will be held between the charity that would run it and Winchester residents.

People in Highcliffe are campaigning against proposals for a six-bed hostel on the site of a garage block in Fivefields Road.

It would be run by Two Saints, a Southampton based charity, and built by Eastleigh Housing Association on land sold by the city council.

On Tuesday five Labour city councillors met senior managers from Two Saints and the housing association to discuss the fears of people living nearby.

The councillors said the managers had agreed to hold three meetings with people from Fivefields Road, Nelson Road and Fivefields Close.

Simon Mantle, Two Saints chief executive, told the Daily Echo it ran 30 or 40 such hostels in Hampshire and west Berkshire.

He said: "We have found that, providing such services are well managed and providing they are given the chance to succeed, people's fears are generally not founded.

"I can understand why people are anxious. But very seldom do people put out the red carpet for us at the planning stage. We are not being complacent but we expect the fact that people resent us at the start.

"It is our job to make the case. Everyone has the right to live somewhere. Our properties are well managed. There are people to contact if things go wrong but I don't see why they should."

It would have three members of staff and the residents would be carefully screened. No sex offenders or dangerous men would be housed.

Mr Mantle declined to discuss the "PR disaster" that preceded Two Saints' involvement with the scheme. For 18 months city council officers secretly planned the hostel while a "community planning" exercise was being held.

Mr Mantle said: "The difficulties between the local authority and local residents are not something that Two Saints wants to get dragged into."

City councillor Ann Craig, who attended the meeting on Tuesday, said: "People are still hostile. They are going to take a lot of convincing that it is not as worrying as they think."