HOMEOWNERS on a new Kent estate claim their lives have been made a misery by the residents of a bail hostel for the last two months.

Rented by property management and support services company Clear Springs, the hostel in Premier Way, in the Kemsley Fields estate in Sittingbourne, it is home to up to four youth offenders.

Neighbours say their children cannot go into their gardens in case the youths are swearing, and also claim the youths play loud music and leave rubbish piled up outside the house.

Operator Clear Springs agreed to close the unit, which opened before Christmads, within 12 weeks, but residents say that is not quick enough.

Mum Jan Davies, who has a 17-month-old toddler, said: “We want them out now.

“The way Clear Springs operate is not supportive to other residents in the road.

“The youths were shipped in overnight. All we received was a note to explain what the company is doing.

“How can they put a scheme like this in an area of young families and render our properties almost worthless overnight?”

In a letter to Clear Springs, Mrs Davies said: “We spent a miserable Christmas and New Year where we should have been enjoying our child’s first Christmas where he could actually understand what was going on. We will never get that back.

“Why are hard-working, law-abiding citizens being penalised so that you can set people up, who have broken the law, in a luxury four-bedroomed house that the taxpayers are paying for?”

Sittingbourne and Sheppey Derek Wyatt MP and Swale Borough Council ward members met residents last Friday.

A protest meeting organised at Iwade Village Hall for next Thursday, will still go ahead despite Clear Springs’ intention to shut down the centre.

Juliette Hewitt, national operations manager for Clear Springs, said: “We have now reviewed this matter and shall be undertaking a structured withdrawal of our service users.

“We shall be continuing to use this property to deliver our service until we can provide suitable replacement premises. We anticipate this taking somewhere in the region of 12 weeks.”

Helen Bell, of Kent Police, said police had not been called to Premier Drive.

Swale Council spokeswoman Tessa Hallett said the council’s environmental health department had received no reports or complaints of excessive noise from the property during the past six months.