The fate of a care home earmarked for demolition has been sealed.

Larchwood Resource Centre in Waldron Avenue, Brighton, will be knocked down and replaced with a complex of self-contained flats.

Brighton and Hove City Council approved proposals to convert the Sixties bungalow into a two and three-storey building providing "extra care" housing at a planning meeting yesterday.

Members granted permission for 38 flats, which will accommodate elderly people who cannot manage to live on their own but do not require round-the-clock care, a communal sitting room, laundry and staff rooms and offices.

Building work must begin by April in order to unlock a £3.5 million Government grant specifically linked to the Larchwood site.

Eleven of the 12 councillors at the meeting approved the plans. Conservative councillor Geoffrey Wells, voted against. Coun Wells also sits on the adult social care and health sub committee and voted against the demolition of the centre when it was considered by it in September.

Conservative councillor Carol Theobald expressed reservations about the height of the proposed building but on the whole agreed with the plans.

Green councillor Sue Paskins said she had hoped the new building would be more eco-friendly.

Yesterday's decision, which approved the plans based on how the new building would look, was the final nail in the coffin for the home.

Even if permission had not been granted, it would be too late for most of the elderly residents who have had to find new homes because the new facility would not be suitable for them.

Gladys May, 84, had lived at Larchwood for ten years. She moved to Birchgrove Nursing Home in Stanford Avenue, Brighton, last Wednesday. Her daughter Carol, 56, of Church Close, Brighton, said she was settling in well but the move had been traumatic.

Carol said the decision to approve the plans came as no surprise.

She said: "I am very disappointed. I thought the council would be a little more forward thinking.

"They are not thinking of the future. In ten to 15 years there will be a lot more people who need the housing that was provided by Larchwood."

At yesterday's meeting the building was described as underused.

The council said it failed to meet care standards and would soon need modernisation.

It said finding residents new homes in the near future would be inevitable and some people's needs could no longer be met by staff at Larchwood.