CAMPAIGNERS are battling to keep a service for mental health patients they say is invaluable to the people of Shaftesbury and Gillingham.

The Waterloo Lodge residential unit on the B3081 is due to close at the end of the month with the loss of seven beds for people with short-term mental health issues.

Patients will instead be treated at the Yeatman Hospital in Sherborne but the unit's supporters say this is just too far away and are calling for a local alternative.

Shaftesbury town councillor Derek Beer said: "It is a place where people who have had a breakdown go to learn how to be brave enough to go out into the world again. If you have had a breakdown, it is sometimes hard enough even to open your front door, so imagine going to Sherborne.

"The people using the facility have done a lot for the local communities over the years, working and helping out with things like Shaftesbury in Bloom, and it is in such a good location."

Cllr Beer brought forward a proposal to the town council to call on Dorset Primary Care Trust (PCT) to ensure the service is kept in the area or brought back as soon as possible, a move that has won the support of the council.

The PCT has said the move to the Yeatman is temporary and the unit will eventually be relocated at a new multi-million-pound hospital due to be built in Shaftesbury in the near future.

The Shaftesbury and District Carers Group has organised a cheese and wine evening to be held at St James' Church on March 20 at 7pm, where local people are invited to come along and find out more about mental health provision in the area.