A controversial secure unit for boys once branded a 'School for Crime' by local residents is earmarked for closure by Oxfordshire County Council.

The county council's ruling executive is expected to recommend on Tuesday the closure of Thornbury House, off The Moors, Kidlington, bringing to an end a four-year running battle with angry villagers.

The council wants to shut the unit by September to save money and because a contract with the Youth Justice Board is about to end.

The annual cost of running the seven-bed unit is £1,371,800. The board has been paying £537 per night for each boy. With the contract ending in the summer, Thornbury House will struggle to fill its beds.

The unit is breaking even, but £115,000 of taxpayers' money could be needed to cover losses in just the three months of June, July and August as occupancy falls.

The executive has not announced what it intends to do with the site, or where the boys will go if the unit closes.

A recent inspection of Thornbury House by the Department of Health's Social Services Inspectorate (SSI) revealed that staff not cleared by the Criminal Records Bureau had been allowed to work unsupervised with children.

The SSI inspectors also discovered that the boys were being locked in their rooms each weekday evening during what was known as "homework time", contravening "guidance and recognised good practice".

The report said there had been difficulty in recruiting staff to vacant posts and "sickness absence continued to stretch limited resources".

Since the previous SSI inspection, one manager has been sacked following a management inquiry.

In February, teacher Sharon Millward was awarded £250,000 in damages by a judge against the county council for the mental scars she bore from her time at Thornbury House. She had been attacked and injured by a teenager in a locked classroom.

In 2000, the boys of Thornbury House were denounced as "neighbours from hell" at a public meeting attended by 200 angry villagers.

A pensioner told of having his war medals stolen, another elderly man had been attacked by a knife-wielding youth, shots had been fired from handguns, garden walls had been knocked down and burglaries were rife.

This week, Mike Rhymes, who chaired a public meeting of protesters, said: "For years we've had to put up with them swaggering through our streets boasting about the crimes they've committed."

But Phil Hodgson, head of social care for children, defended the unit."This centre has worked wonders with incredibly vulnerable youngsters," he said. "Staff have worked through so many of the boys' difficulties in the face of very challenging behaviour."