Legal action was today being threatened against a council which may sanction the closure of a care home just before Christmas.

Council bosses are to decide tomorrow whether pensioners should be moved from the New Moreton Centre in St Leonards.

However some relatives claim there has been insufficient consultation. A five-month consultation and review was reduced by two months by East Sussex County Council.

Norma Dudley, whose 86-year-old mother Clara has spent seven years at New Moreton, is calling for a negotiated settlement including redeveloping the home with the elderly residents staying on.

Mrs Dudley claims the council has acted unfairly by bringing forward the review report to this month, instead of February.

Her solicitors have written to the council, saying if it presses ahead with moving the pensioners, they will seek a judicial review.

Mrs Dudley said: "We believe we've a strong case against East Sussex County Council. We think the consultation has been done wrongly.

"The council let residents and their relatives know on November 21 the review date was being brought forward to December 18.

"That, I feel, gave people very little time to make proper representations."

The 18-room home in Boscobel Road may be turned into an intermediate rehabilitation centre to ease hospital bed blocking, following a successful £1 million government cash bid.

However, relatives fear the upheaval of moving the eight long-stay pensioners, many aged in their 80s and 90s, could kill them.

A county council spokeswoman said there was no statutory period for consultation and the authority had acted properly.

She said: "We decided to bring forward the report of the outcome of the review for two reasons. Firstly, we had completed the formal period of consultation and the assessments of the residents' needs.

"Secondly, and most importantly, we were concerned the residents and their relatives would hear about the bid and have a long period of anxiety about the future.

"This is particularly important as we have kept them informed of the bid and, in the event of it being successful and accepted, it would mean them being relocated to another home in the area."

She said New Moreton was an ideal site for a rehabilitation centre.