A county councillor has called for the 'open door' policy at a Chelmsford mental Health unit to be reviewed after a gun scare.

Armed police were alerted after a man, believed to be armed, went into the canteen at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford.

The sound of gun being fired had previously been heard coming from a wooded area near the hospital. An Armed Response Vehicle was called and Chelmsford Police attended.

A 23-year-old man, a voluntary patient at The Linden Centre, adjoining Broomfield Hospital was arrested and later released.

Police later said that no offence had occurred, the man had been firing some form of cap gun.

Insp Kevin Wakefield of Chelmsford Police stressed the gun had not been fired in a public place and there had been no danger.

He stressed: "All appropriate steps were taken" during the incident which occurred about 4.15pm on Thursday.

Broomfield county councillor Wendy Cole said that residents were very nervous about the proximity of The Linden Centre mental health unit to the local community.

She thought the health authority should consider the siting of the centre and review its open door policy.

Cllr Cole said: "The reponse is always 'we cannot do anything because a major crime has not happened' but people here are uneasy.

"It is relatively easy for people leaving the centre to get into back gardens down the road.

"There has been a case of a young woman throwing herself on the bonnets of passing cars and we have twice had a patient completely intoxicated asking us to take them back to the centre.

These are minor incidents but do worry the people who live in the Broomfield Road locality."

Cllr Cole said patients used to be treated at Severalls, Colchester, which was a "long way from everywhere."

David Manion, deputy chief executive of the Mid Essex Community and Mental Health NHS Trust said: "It has been policy for a number of years for mental health units to be on district general hospital sites and to move The Linden Centre would cost millions of pounds.

"However, the borough council has given planing permission for locked facilities."

Mr Manion explained that the patient who had been involved in the cap gun incident was a voluntary patient anyway and under the Mental Health Act could not be legally locked up.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.