A crowd of more than 300 people turned out in Kearsley tonight to discuss concerns about community safety sparked by an anonymous letter.

Residents were left outside in the cold after a huge crowd turned up at Trinity Church in Farnworth for the Kearsley Area Forum.

Many said they had turned out to discuss issues surrounding an anonymous letter sent to residents.

It stated that a house in Manchester Road was being converted into a multi-occupancy hostel managed by Serco which “specialise in, amongst other things, rehabilitating offenders and immigration control”.

However with the church hall packed to capacity, organisers were forced to turn people away at the door and at one point police officers stepped in to calm those stuck outside the main hall.

Sarah Fitton, of Ryders Farm, said: “We understand they have to consider health and safety but our questions wouldn’t be answered.

“We were told this was the place to come and have our questions answered.

“This is the whole community rallied together. Without people telling us what is going on, what are we supposed to do? Who are we supposed to trust?”

Another resident, who did not wished to be named, said they had come to the meeting to find out what the local council was doing about the raised in the letter.

They added: “You can see how people feel, very angry, that’s why there are so many here tonight.”

Despite a full agenda, the meeting was dominated by the discussion surrounding Manchester Road.

Locals were eager to get their view across, with many people shouting over each other to be heard.

At one point ward Councillor Derek Burrows was shouted down when he attempted to cut off the discussion.

Speaking afterwards he said: “Because of the fire regulations and we cannot let people in more people than the capacity allows, otherwise we would have had to stop the meeting. I apologised to people outside, usually the rooms we get are big enough.

“People are angry, we understand why they are unhappy, and we tried to give them answers.”