Place for mentally impaired accused opens

There's now an alternative to jail for mentally impaired people accused of crimes in Western Australia.

The Lord Street Disability Justice Centre in Perth will be known as a "declared place", housing people deemed unfit to plead due to their intellectual or cognitive disability.

Until now, such people have been held in prison.

The opposition says local residents are concerned because the centre has been built less than 300 metres from a local school in Caversham, which "contradicts the government's own criteria".