Hopes are rising that beds in a centre for old people can be rescued.

Brighton and Hove City Council carried out a consultation exercise in the summer about the future of Knoll House in Ingram Crescent, Hove, which is both a day and a residential centre.

Options included moving the beds elsewhere or finding someone else to run the residential section because the cost of upgrading the home to meet Government could be £2 million.

But after consultation proved overwhelmingly hostile to those ideas, the policy and resources committee has decided to undertake a costed feasibility study into renovating the building.

Once this has been completed, the next question for the council will be how to find the money when the authority may be overspent by millions of pounds at the end of the financial year.

But social care cabinet councillor Jean Spray said help would be sought through a partnership between health and housing organisations which have a vested interest in seeing the beds remain.

The closure of beds in rest and nursing homes across the city is leading to bed blocking in hospitals.

Coun Spray said some people had been cynical about the consultation exercise, claiming the council had already made up its mind to get rid of the beds.

But she said it had been a genuine consultation, as the result was now proving.

Tory social care spokeswoman Ann Norman said: "This has been a big success for public participation."

She added: "We do feel refurbishment is the best way forward.

"At last the council has realised that the public sector is under extreme pressure."

Tory councillor Garry Peltzer Dunn said: "People have been scared rigid by all this and there has been real anger."

Green group convenor Keith Taylor said alarm bells started ringing when the council put a figure in its budget for savings on Knoll House.

Liberal Democrat leader Paul Elgood was worried that the commitment to refurbishment was too vague and asked: "What happens if we can't afford to do it?"

There was praise all round for the standard of care at Knoll House which Coun Spray described as five-star.