New plans are being drawn up for the £5 million revamp of a hospital-home for ex-servicemen.

Managers at Gifford House, the Queen Alexandra Hospital-Home in Worthing, were disappointed when borough planners rejected proposals for a major extension to the complex.

Planners said the extension looked out of place alongside the original Victorian property, formerly called The Gables, in Boundary Road.

Gifford House was forced to submit the plans after the Government ruled that its residents, some maimed in the service of their country, should have en suite single bedrooms.

The Government refused to grant the hospital-home an exemption from the new regulations on the grounds many of its residents preferred to share rooms.

John Paxman, chief executive of Gifford House, said: "The build project remains on track for a mid-2003 start, once Worthing Borough Council planning committee, which will again look at our amended plans early in the new year, has granted planning approval.

"With care homes in the South-East closing at the rate of five a week, demand for beds at Gifford House continues to rise.

"The Government recently announced a consultation process on revisions to the National Minimum Standards to try to halt the continual closure of homes.

"Despite much public trumpeting of this process, in essence the proposed revisions apply to only a very few homes. Sadly they will do little to change the current planning under way at the QAHH or change the overall cost that will have to be borne.

"As always, the generosity and help of our benefactors and supporters has always been so very crucial to the hospital-home in the past and will continue to be so as we set about having to raise the £5 million that this building project will ultimately cost us.

"This will be a huge task but, with perseverance, hard work and with the help from all our friends, we will succeed to continue to support and care for disabled ex-servicemen.

"Homes are now sadly closing but we have no intention of closing but we do need to continue to fund raise constantly in order to maintain the very high standards that we keep."

The revised plans involve moving the extension north by two metres and creating a design more in keeping with the original Gifford House.